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THE MONEYLESS MAN 



AND OTHER POEMS 



THE MONEYLESS MAN 



AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



HENRY T STANTON 




BALTIMORE 

HENRY C TURNBULL Jr 

1871 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870 by 

HENRY C. TURNBULL.jR. 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



IJfNKS & COMPANY, 
PRINTERS. 



t$h\i> ¥ 1 u m 



DEDICATE D 



IvI TT IS/E O T H E 12/ . 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Moneyless Man.. 9 

Nameless " ^^ 

Caste ^5 

The Nasturtium Flower.. ^7 

Winter Night ^3 

The Life-Way ^5 

Ideal Presence ^7 

The Eastern Star • ^8 

Retrospection ■ 3- 

Dead Flowers 33 

A Pipe After Tea 34 

Under the Pines 37 

She 3^ 

The Faith She Plighted Mc 4i 

Charity 45 

Seventy 49 

Sabbath School Bells 5° 

Type and Time 54 

Mount Vernon ^'3 

Types of Life ^'^' 

The Path ^S 



8 CONTENTS, 

PAGE 

The Bivouac 70 

Heart Lessons 73 

Time at the South 80 

Double Life 84 

The Little Boy Guiding the Plow - 86 

The Flower-Graves 89 

Fallen 93 

Midnight Bells 102 

After the War loj 

Sixty-Five in 

To Master George W, Johnston 120 

His Last Day 122 

Elmwood 127 

Response — Impromptu 129 

Beauty 131 

To "Katy" 132 

Second Marriage 134 

Midnight at Salt Sulphur 135 

Smoke-Pictures 136 

Cure for Headache 138 

Underneath ^ 139 

Sixty-Six 141 

Lee 153 



THE MONEYLESS MAN. 

Is there no secret place on the face of the earth, 
Where charity dwelleth, where virtue has birth ? 
Where bosoms in mercy and kindness will heave, 
When the poor and the wretched shall ask and 

receive ? 
Is there no place at all, where a knock from the 

poor, 
Will brmg a kind angel to open the door ? 
Ah, search the wide world w^herever you can 
There is no open door for a Moneyless Man ! 

Go, look in yon hall where the chandelier's light 
Drives off with its splendor the darkness of night. 
Where the rich^ianging velvet in shadowy fold 
Sweeps gracefully down with its trimmings of gold. 
And the mirrors of silver take up, and renew, 
In long lighted vistas the 'wildering view : 
Go there ! at the banquet, and find, if you can, 
A welcoming smile for a Moneyless Man ! 

9 



lo THE MONEYLESS MAN. 

Go, look in yon church of the cloud-reaching spire, 
Which gives to the sun his same look of red fire, 
Where the arches and columns are gorgeous within. 
And the walls seem as pure as a soul without sin ; 
Walk down the long aisles, see the rich and the great 
In the pomp and the pride of their worldly estate ; 
Walk down in your patches, and find, if you can, 
Who opens a pew to a Moneyless Man. 

Go, look in the Banks, where Mammon has told 
His hundreds and thousands of silver and gold ; 
Where, safe from the hands of the starving and poor, 
Lies pile upon pile of the glittering ore ! 
Walk up to their counters — ah, there you may stay 
'Til your limbs grow old, 'til your hairs grow gray, 
And you '11 find at the Banks not one of the clan 
With money to lend to a Moneyless Man ! 

Go, look to yon Judge, in his dark-flowing gown. 
With the scales wherein law weigheth equity down ; 
Where h'e frowns on the weak and smiles on the 

strong, 
And punishes right whilst he justifies wrong ; 
Where juries their lips to the Bible have laid, 
To render a verdict — they 've already made : 
Go there, in the court-room, and find, if you can, 
Any law for the cause of a Moneyless Man ! 

Then go to your hovel — no raven has fed 

The wife who has suffered too lone: for her bread : 



THE MONEYLESS MAN. n 

Kneel down by her pallet, and kiss tlie death-frost 
From the lips of the angel your poverty lost : 
Then turn in your agony upward to God, 
And bless, while it smites you, the chastening rod, 
And you '11 find, at the end of your life's little span, 
There 's a welcome above for a INIoneyless Man ! 



NAMELESS. 

There were great lights from the paLice 

Streaming on the outer trees, 
That, with fleckings thro' the trellis, 

Played a-tremor at his knees. 
As a minstrel stranger, friendless, 

Underneath the walls of Fame 
Sat in silence, whilst the endless 

Notes of glory-music came. 

Paths, to him, were bleak and aimless, 

As he sat within the shade, 
Telling o'er the wonders, nameless. 

That his poet-heart had made : 
" Could he pass the amber portal, 

And the jasper halls along. 
Where the poet-souls immortal 

Held their revelry of song ? 

" Could he strike a chord of sorrow 
In the upper, choral spheres. 
Where to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
It would echo down the years ? 



iVAMELESS. 

Could he grasp the ivy cHnging 
At the marble casement, now, 

And amid the spirits singing, 
Wear it, deathless, on his brow ? 



Once he thought to climb the terrace 

To the open, opal gate, 
Where, beyond the sweeping arras. 

Swelled the voices of the great ; 
Where the stricken harp-strings golden 

Gave their notes in high accord 
To the music-stories olden, 

To the glory of the Lord. 

But his soul, untaught and simple. 

Shrinking outward, turned away, 
Where the great lights from the temple 

Drove the night-time from the day : 
I shall seek the shadow, yonder 

Underneath the silent pine j 
There are harp-notes higher, grander 

Than may ever be from mine ! " 

Soft lie touched the strings, like Summer 
Touching o'er the barren trees, 

And the night bore out their murmur, 
Through its alleys, to the seas ; 

Softer, sweeter went the cadence 
Through the branches and above, 



13 



14 



NAiMELESS. 

As come visions unto maidens 
In the budding-time of love. 

Through the gates of opal splendor, 

And along the jasper wall, 
Pass the notes of music tender. 

Through the corridor and hall ; 
And his tones sweep in the chamber 

From the shadow and the gloom, 
And their liquid echoes clamber 

Up the arras to the dome. 

And they rise and fall like billows, 

In the alcoves of the air. 
Passing in and out the willows, 

And across beyond the mere ; 
High, and grand, and godly power 

Sweeps along the palace eaves, 
'Til the ivy-vine, in flower. 

Trembles music from its leaves. 



And the poet-souls may listen 

To the outer harp to-night. 
And the great lamps gleam and glisten 

In an ecstacy of light ; 
These are music-tones undying. 

These are worthy highest name, 
From the poet-spirit lying 

Underneath the walls of Fame. 



CASTE. 



If, as a burn, 
That from the shadow fleeing, 
Seeks the shine 
On some broad river, 
I now could turn 
The current of my being 
Into thine. 
To flow forever — 
Believest thou this tribute-blood 
Would give thy veins to darker flood ? 

The tuneful brooks 
That down the slopes are going 
To the sea 
With music-laughter. 
In hidden nooks 
Begin their silver flowing, 
Silently, 
To chorus after. 
Believest thou, because obscure 
Of origin, they are not pure ? 



l6 CASTE. 

Not in the grand, 
Resistless, moving river. 
Do we find 
The lucent crystal ; 
But out the land 
The springs run limpid ever, 
Overtwined 
By vine and thistle : 
Not from the pure, pearled fountain veins 
Do rivers take their debris stains. 



O, maid ! O, queen ! 
O, proud and pulsing woman ! 
If the tide 
That floods these valleys, 
Less pure were seen 
Than that in any human. 
It should hide 
In covert alleys, 
Where cunning eyes should never trace 
The slow course of its under-race. 



THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 



1 SAW, last night, a ruin gray, 

An isolated tower, 
A work of art, from which decay 
Had crumbled portions every day, 

A feature, every hour ; 

And o'er it grew a summer vine, 

A purple Morning Glory, 
That hung in many a waving line, 
And many a clustering tassel fine, 
From turrets old and hoary ; 

And underneath the ruined wall, 

In moody spirit lying, 
I saw the white wave rise and fall, 
And heard the sea-bird's mystic call. 

Far on the waters dymg. 

The wood upon the sombre hill 

Its leafy bosom hushes. 
And nothing wakes the midnight still, 
Save here and there a Whip-po-wil 

From widely scattered bushes. 



1 8 THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

I know not if my eyelids fell — 
My pulses were not failing ; 

I saw the ocean's even swell ; 

At intervals, my ear could tell 

The lone bird's far-off wailing:. 



And while I lay, with w^andering eye 

O'er Heaven's starry arches, 
And watched the meteor shooting by, 
And saw the Pleiads holding high 
Their ever-burnine: torches. 



A voice came from the ruin old. 
At first, a pleasant murmur ; 
And then I heard a story told 
In accents stronger, and more bold, 
Of Winter and of Summer. 



The Vine said to the Tower gray: 
" My leaves about thee flinging, 
Thou shalt not feel the burning day, 
Thy rocks shall never waste away 

Where my green arms are clinging. 

Uphold me with thy sturdy hand, 

And lift me from the shadow, 
And thou shalt feel thy gray brow fanned 
With zephyrs, through its leafy band. 
From fragrant field and meadow. 



THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

" I '11 gather all the morning dew 
Within my purple flower, 
And when the sun comes up anew, 
I '11 wash thy granite bosom true 
With oil my silvery shower. 

" So tenderly I '11 twine around 

Each fragment, trembling over, 
That it shall spurn the colder ground, 
And feel itself as sweetly bound 
As lady to her lover. 

" I '11 make thy portal emerald-green, 
With here and there a blossom, 
And thou shalt have some fairy queen 
To come into my leaves, and lean 
Her forehead on thv bosom. 



" Oh, I will make thy life so sweet. 
In one delightful Summer, 
That pulses in thy heart shall beat 
And then — I '11 wither at thy feet, 
And die without a murmur." 



Then spoke the cold gray stones, and said 

" Thy life, sweet Vine, is golden ; 
The season all its charms has shed 
Upon thy fair and fragile head. 
While I am gray and olden. 



19 



THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

" I need not tell thee whence I sprung ; 
For yonder craggy mountain 
Is not more old, nor yet more young, 
Although its brows have frowning hung 
Since Adam, o'er the fountain. 

" My form is rude, as thine is fair ; 

My limbs are cold and cheerless ; 
I feel the very summer air 
Come searching through me, even where 

Thou cling'st in beauty peerless. 

" No zephyr comes but takes away 

A portion of my being ; 
The gathered dew, that starry spray 
Which thou upon my breast would'st lay, 

But aids my life in fleeing. 

" The sunshine through thy very leaves 

My particles doth sever ; 
And while thy tender bosom grieves. 
One after one an atom leaves, 

And I am dying: ever. 



The summer rain that bids thee live. 

And opens out thy blossom, 
Can to my life no freshness give, 
But takes away the strength I have 
In passage through my bosom. 



THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 2 1 

" Oh, I have seen a form like thine 
Reach up — how very often ! — 

And here its gentle tendrils twine 

About this frosty head of mine. 
As thou, my cares to soften. 

" And I have seen the Autumn too 

The fairest trellis redden ; 
And Winter, pour its breathing through 
The very cup that caught the dew. 

And all its powers deaden. 

" And one by one their lives have fled, 

As thine will soon be flying ; 
And at my feet a fragrant bed 
Of withered leaves, and tendrils dead, 

In sorrow will be lying. 

" I cannot weep, though all I love. 
The freshest and the fairest. 
That on my gray rocks live and move, 
Must take the garb that Winter wove 
For that which now thou wearest. 

" The Winters come, and come and go, 
And I am here repining \ 
I feel alike the sun and snow. 
The zephyr or the storms that blow. 

Where thy green arms arc twining." 



22 THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

The voices hushed, and silence came, 

A spell upon the Heaven ; 

And underneath the Pleiad's flame, 

The mantled tower stood the same ; 

The ocean swelled as even. 



I prithee, lady, read my dream 

To thine interpretation. 
And it shall take that brig^hter gleam 
From thy poetic current stream. 

To music's sweet relation. 



In blessing me it must have been. 

At that enchanted hour, 
That thou, of fay and blossom kin, 
Had left a spirit sleeping in 
The bosom of the flower. 



And thus to me in vision thrall 

Came glories without number : 
I see the white wave rise and fall, 
I hear the sea-bird's mystic call 
In echoes from my slumber. 



Ah, unto such a soul as mine 

The gentle fairy's doin' 
Was but to tell in softer line, 
That thou wert yet a tender vine. 
And I a crumbled ruin ! 



WINTER NIGHT. 

When the soul is weary, weary, 
Through these winter clays so dreary, 

With their wilderness of white. 
There's a charm for such an illness 
In the shadow and the stillness 

Of the sober, thoughtful night. 

When the earth's green shoots are dying, 
And the cold snow o'er them flying — 

Flying all the Winter day, 
Then the heart will beat in sadness. 
While with strange, fantastic gladness 

The white flakes seem to play. 

But the purple Night comes, slowly, 
As some abbess, grave and holy. 

Up the still aisles of the sky ; 
And the red stars troop the arches 
With their legions, to the marches 

That are only heard on high. 



24 



WINTER NIGHT. 

Then the soul, no longer minion, 
Beats the trammels from its pinion. 

Bids its sorrow all adieu ; 
And the scarcely dying even, 
Sees in yonder tranquil Heaven 

Its white wing cleaving through. 



THE LIFE-WAY 



The axe-man of life, at the Master's decree, 

Hath come from the clearing and girdled a tree — 

An oak that was leaning in sympathy o'er 

The ashes of trees that were girdled before ; 

And under our feet, as the passage we tread. 

The branches are withered, the blossoms are dead. 



Before is a forest, behind is a plain 

Wliere verdure may never be trodden again ; 

For, on to the shadow and into the shade. 

We follow the way that the \voodman has made : 

Though sturdy the monarchs, and stately and tall, 

The axe of the woodman must girdle them all. 

The forest is Life, and the trees are the Years, 
The leaves under-foot are the symbols of tears, 
And shadows are with us wherever we go. 
And spirits are weary and eyelids a-flow ; 
I'or Time is the woodman, and over his track 
The feet of humanity never go back. 



25 



2 6 THE LIFE- WAY. 

There are those in the world, who, hving too fiist, 
Have never an eye for the lesson-full past, 
But in reaching beyond and peering away, 
They trample the bloom that environs to-day, 
And suffer with hope, and out of their sorrow 
They rush to the ultimate pang of to-morrow. 

The pleasures w^e seek and the jewels we find 

Are never before, but are ever behind ; 

And carelessly, heedlessly still do we pass 

The treasure-full things that go down in the glass ; 

For the greed of a greater thing urgeth us on 

'Til gem after gem in the life-sand is gone. 

Our moments are gold, and the shores of the Past 
From whence we have come on the journey too fast, 
Are sparkled with riches we never may reach. 
That lay in our way as we loitered the beach — 
\Vhen Flope went ahead with its promises sweet, 
W'e trampled Reality under our feet. 



I DEAL r R KSi:XCE 



As bees go over 

The seas of clover, 
So do my heart-wings go to my lover; 

And over the grades 

Of murmurous blades, 
And over the shimmer and over the shades, 

And airy and light 

As a fairy's flight, 
I follow the arc of the inner sight. 



Where a commerce moves 

In its iron grooves, 
May tarry the clay of the heart that loves ; 

But over the aisles 

Of the iron miles 
Must hasten the eye to the eye that smiles; 

To the jewel set 

In a minaret 
The track of its gleam is the truest yet. 



THE EASTERN STAK 



In Mason's Hall, with earnest eyes, 

Upon the Chart before me, 
I viewed the S3'mbolecl mysteries 
That Masons keep and Masons prize ; 
I see the arm my brothers wield. 
Uplifted with its burnished shield. 
Let fall its shadow o'er me. 



My sisters true — in years agone — 

Beyond the waste of water 
I see them stand and beck me on : 
Sweet Ruth, the gleaner at the dawn ; 
Electa, dear, and Martha wait ; 
Queen Esther, in her robes of State ; 

And Jephtha's peerless daughter ! 



THt: EASTERN STAR. 

III. 

Judges, xi : 35. 

" My flithcr's vow, so fervent made, 
I would not have it broken! 
And thouoh my pallid neck be laid 
All bare beneath the colder blade, 
I '11 give him still a steadfast e\e 
And joy, m hearing as I die, 

' Alas ! my daughter ! ' spoken. 
In Heaven's sight my faith I plight. 
And I will break it never : 
I '11 trust in /////, and tJiis, and ////V, 
Forever and forever ! " 



Ruth ii : 5. 

The Master in the harvest days 

Shall find me gleaning early ; 
The sun shall gild me with his rays 
As I go down the reaper ways. 
And tho' He ask, 'Whose damsel's this? 
I know His great heart cannot miss 

These little hands of barlev. 
In Heaven's sight my fiiith I plight, 

And I will break it never: 
I "11 trust in this^ and this, and this. 

Forever and forever 1 " 



29 



30 THE EASTERN STAR. 

V. 

Esther, v : 3. 

" I fearless go before the crown 

To move the thorns that fester ; 
And though the king himself may frown, 
And long to cut God's peoj-le down, 
I still have faith in such a day 
That he will smile and freely say, 

' What wilt thou, proud Queen Esther ? ' 
In Heaven's sight my faith. 1 plight, 

And I will break it ne\er : 
I '11 trust in tliis^ and tJiis^ and this, 
Forever and forever ! " 



VI. 

John, xi : 26. 

My faith in Christ no earthly hand 

Can ever move or sever : 
GO) take His tidings thro' the land 
With cymbals loud and trumpets grand ! 
For He shall say, ' Believest this ? ' 
And dead shall rise His feet to kiss 

Forever and forever ! 
In Heaven's sight my faith I plight, 

And I will break it never : 
I '11 trust in this, and this, and this, 

Forever and forever ! " 



THE EASTERN STAR. 31 

VII. 
2D Epis. John, ii : 5. 

Tho' rack and torture come to me — 

'lY) husband, children, mother — 
'I'hro' Jesus' blood I yet shall see 
Some glimpses of eternity ; 
And far beyond the cross — the grave — 
There 's still a hand to bless and save 

For /(?7'ing one another. 
In Heaven's sight my faith I plight, 

And I will break it never : 
I '11 ?.rust in this, and this, and this, 

Forever and forever ! "' 



VIII. 

In virtue's paths my way shall be. 

Where flowers bloom the rarest ; 
And all I know, and all 1 see. 
Shall mark a sister's truth in me. 
By yon bright star that shines above, 
M\; path I '11 keep, and try to prove, 

Among ten thousand fairest. 
\\\ Heaven's sight my faith I plight, 

And [ will break it never: 
I 'II hope in these^ and tJiese., and tJiese^ 

forever and forever ! " 



R K T R O S P K C T ION. 

Looking backward for the glory 

Of a gilded summer dawn, 
Down a weary waste of whiteness — 

Down a dreary winter lawn ; 
Looking backward for the freshness 

Of a green and sapful June, 
Through the sombre brown and crimson 

Of an autumn afternoon ; 
Looking backward, down the shadow 

Of an iron-beaten way, 
Whence the armored Time came, silent, 

On this animate to day. 
O, it startles human reason, 

O, it withers human pride — 
Looking backward, ever backward, 

For the living things that died ; 
And the soul that seems immortal 

In the never-breaking gloom, 
Hath a presence at the portal 

Of the ]:)alace of the tomb. 



]) E A D I' L () W' K R S 



Because I wore them for an hour, 
Forever fresh to thee." 



The Rose-bud on thy bosom died — 

O, death, divinely sweet — 
Whilst here a poet-heart hath sighed, 
To bear to thee its passion tide, 

And perish at thy feet. 

The Euchsia withered on thy brow. 

Amidst thy shining hair; 
Whilst here a soul to earth would bow 
And break its latest altar-vow 

For but one moment there. 



O, brow of pearl ! O, breast of snow ! 

O, lips of love divine ! 
The bud hath caught their crimson glow, 
And borne thy pulse's tidal flow 

In purjilc life to mine. 

33 



A PIPE AFTER TEA. 



I5rix(> me a coal for my old clay pipe — 

A coal that is glowing- and red, 

And draw up my chair 

To the fireside there, 

And hasten the children to bed : 

We have finished our task and finished our tea, 

And the evening prayer is said. 

Now place at the hearth a faggot or two. 
And carry the kettle away; 
I'm thinking, my wife, 
Of the pleasure in life 
We have known this many a day ; 
For our hearts are warm and our spirits }oung, 
Though our heads be turning gray. 

Ah, now you look, witli your knitting, there, 
So cheerful and pleasant, my dear. 
That I feel, full well, . 
My old heart swell 
As it did in its bridal gear, 
And I know it throbs as faithful still 
In the Autumn-time that's here. 



34 



A PIPE AFTER TEA. 

Come back with me to the early day, 
'Hie Spring of our tender love, 
When a fair young bride, 
At the altar-side. 
Looked up to the Heaven above, 
.\iul Gjd was nigh, and His Summer wind 
Sang joyous in the grove. 



Our fathers were there, our mothers too — • 
We cherish the blessings they gave ; 

And tears must fall 

To know they 're all 
In the cold and silent grave, 

Where the slow years pas^i 

In the dropping glass, 
And willows o'er them wave. 



But all of us die, and day by day 
We pillow each other to sleep, 
And the tears may rise 
To our saddened eyes 
From the heart in its sorrow deep ; 
Hut God hath an eye to the sparrow's fall. 
And the humblest soul will keep. 

Tor two score years we ha\'c kept our faith. 
And true to our earliest tryst, 
We have found the goal 
Of a quiet soul. 



36 



A FIFE AFFER FEA. 

That many a heart hath missed, 
And many a spirit hath wandered away 
To the tones we would not list. 



Ah, wife, I feel my old blood course 
And tingle away in my veins. 
When I think how true 
Both I and you, 
Together, have guided the reins. 
With nothing on earth to mar our love. 
And fret and bother our brains. 



And here we sit, on this Winter night, 
A cozy and happy old pair, 
And loving as true 
As we used to do 
When I was young and you were fair, 
And the silver thread from the loom of years 
Came not in vour raven hair. 



I shake the coal from my old clay pipe, 
For now it is blackened and dead, 
And the faggot gone, 
And the fire wan, 
And the lamp-wick nearly fled. 
And the clock, with a nervous stroke, says ten 
And it's time to go to bed! 



UNDER THE PINES. 



Night, with lier clustering, coronal stars. 
Over a world full of passions and wars 

Her quieting wing has spread ; 
There 's silence out in these mystical hills — 
There 's silence over the voiceful rills, 
And Earth, to all of its sorrowful thrills 

In the fever of day, is dead. 

O, beautiful Night ! sweet season of dreams ! 
Rich in thy glory and soft in thy gleams, 

How rapidly fleeting thou art ! 
Throw over my spirit thy mantle of gold, 
Let slumber and visions my bosom enfold, 
Till all of thine eloquent moments are told 

In the silvery sands of my heart. 

Out in the meadow are those who have died. 
The stream running still fi'om the wound open wide 

Oh, I sickened all day at the sight ! 
Alas ! for the heart of its idol denied ! 
Alas ! for the vow of the groom to the bride ! 
He only liiay come to her tremulous side 



In the beautiful visions of Night ! 



37 



SHE. 

O, COLD are the flakes 

That fall in the lakes, 
And bitter the winds that be ; 

And icy and chill 

The minarets still 
That stand in the Polar Sea; 

But colder than all 
Of the flakes that fall, 

And the bitterest winds that be- 
Than the Mer de glace 
In the Northern Pass — 

Than the Pole itself — is she. 

In the amber light 

Of the sky, one night, 
I tore my bosom apart, 

And under a moon 

Of the fervid June 
Was "offered" to her my heart; 

For I tore it out 
Of its red redoubt, 



38 



SHE. 39 

And laid it over the pyre, 

Where the torrid heat 

Of its fever-beat 
Went, soul to soul, with the fire. 

But never a stone 

To the chisel known 
So little of pulse betrayed, 

And the passion-lines 

Of her outer signs 
Meant — never a word they said. 

O, the glacier stoop 

Of her shoulders' droop 
May show in the night like gold. 

And the lunar fleck 

On her marble neck 
A tinge of the blood may hold ; 

But never a drop 

Of the venous cup 
Can ever the lancet shed : 

The fever has flown — 

The woman is stone, 
And the sylph-like thing is dead. 

What the boddice robes 
For her mammal globes 
Is only an icy lie ; 



40 



SHE. 

Though the lace may rest 
On her milk-white breast, 
A babe at the place would die ! 

For colder than all 
Of the flakes that fall, 

And the bitterest winds that be 
Than the Mej- de glace 
In the Northern Pass — 

Than the Pole itself — is she! 



THE FAITH SHE PLIGHTED ME 

Her whiter hand hiy lost in mine, 

The while she turned away 
To where the evening's flush of wine 
.Went up the face of day — 
" When all these Autumn leaves are shed, 
And I beyond the sea, 
You '11 not forget, O Love," I said, 
" The faith you 've plighted me ? " 

Her brown eyes, going outward far, 

Were silent in reply ; 
It seemed she thought some early star 
Would break the shadowed sky ; 
"When seeds of Spring are harvest grain, 
And leaves in purple be. 
You "11 not forget," I said again, 
" The faith you 've plighted me ? " 

And shadows thickened where we stood, 
And night came on apace j 

D* 41 



42 



THE FAITH SHE PLIGHTED ME. 

I saw a tear — the heart's true blood' — 

Stand silent on her face 
" By these two hands at parting met, 

By sacred tears I see, 
I know, dear Love, you '11 not forget 

The faith you 've plighted me.*' 

Then came her full-heart from her eyes, 

Turned, liquidly, to mine — 
" Did Eve forget her Paradise 

Beneath another vme ^ 
No, no," she said, '• the waves may fling 

Then- whiteness on the sea, 
Nor time, nor tide, nor death shall bring 

Forfretfulness to me ! " 



I went where science, learning, art. 

Heaped memorable piles ; 
I felt the great world's pulsing heart 

Throb in the Flower Isles ; 
I saw the countless soulful eyes 

That sparkle in their dance. 
Beneath the rich Italian skies. 

The fruity hills of France ; 



The Scottish truth — the Irish grace — 
The German's fru2:al care — 



THE FAITH SHE PLIGHTED ME. 

In every shape the human face, 

And beauty everywhere; 
And Summer and the Autumn came, 

And leaves were in their fall — 
I held her image here the same, 

An idol over all. 



You mark the pale^ proud woman there. 

Beneath the astral shhie: 
Despite such blossoms in her hair 

Her heart should pulse to mine : 
I brought the sunset back to-night 

From far beyond the sea; 
I dared not think she held so light 

The faith she plighted me ! 

I clutched the goblet as a vise, 

And pledged her thus m wnie: 
May Eve forget her Paradise 

Beneath another vine ! 
And then I said, the waves may fling 

Their whiteness on the sea. 
Nor time, nor tide, nor death shall bring 

Forgetfulness to me ! 



O, friend ! I trust no siren tongue. 
No human voice or tears; 



43 



44 



THE FAITH SHE PLIGHTED ME. 

In all the world I dwelt among, 
No eye had truth like hers, 

I pass no more the blighted spot, 
No more the shadows see, 

Since she who loved so soon forgot 
The faith she plighted me! 



CHARITY. 

How many proud people who gather to-day 
In chambers of pleasure, at feasts of dispUiy, 
Who quicken their lips in immaculate wine, 
With its typical foam and its sparkle divine, 
Have a pang at the heart, or a tear at the eye, 
For the woman in rags who is shivering by ? 

How many to-day in this legion of souls 

Who are tracing the pictures that glow in the coals. 

Who see in the future their temples arise 

As the wonderful homes unto worshipful eyes. 

Have pulses awake for the shadowy poor, 

Who, white as the marble, enphantom the door ? 

How many, O God ! in Thy mercy and grace. 
Who are made in Thy form and are stamped witli 
Thy flice, 

45 



46 



CHARITY 



Who move on Thy footstool, and graciously live 
With light for Thy worship, with power to give, 
Have oil for the wounds of the man by the way, 
Or bread to be cast on the waters to-day ? 

O, people whose chambers of crimson and gold 
Are astir with the lambs of your own little fold, 
Whose feet in their frolic just dimple the bed 
Of the burying velvet the little ones tread, 
Be still for a season, -just hearken the moans 
Of the poor little feet that are bare on the stones ! 

O, people who banquet, and revel, and laugh 
In the blood of the grape and the fat of the calf; 
W'hen dwelling in plenty and swelling in pride 
Your children are petted, and pampered, and plied, 
Throw open 3'our casements, and look at the brood. 
Just over the wa}', who are crying for food ! 

O, peojDle in coaches, with liveried things 
That wait in the glitter of tinsel and rings. 
That come at your becking and go at your will — 
All creatures of Mammon-GoD's images still ! — 
Sink back in your cushions and hide you in shame 
From the piteous eyes of the paupered and lame ! 

O, mistress of fashion ! O, master of gold ! 

Far hidden in furs from the sting of the cold — 

As your spirits go out and your ecstasy swells 



CHARITY. 



47 



At the sight of the snow and the sound of the bells, 
Do you mind that the widow is wanting a cloak — 
That her chimney is bleak in a city of smoke? 

Come out of your casings, O, armor-clad souls, 
That live in the tinkle of ewers and bowls ; 
Come out from the sight of your carpeted feet 
With pity for those that are bare in the street : 
Come, open your coffers, in mercy, to-day, 
For the little ones crying just "over the way! 

Step out of your coaches and cutters, O, fools 
That sneer at the wretches that dwell in the pools ; 
Step out, and for once in the bountiful year 
Have eyes that can see and have ears that can 

hear ; 
Step out from your cushions of revel and shame — ■ 
Go comfort the widow, go pity the lame ! 

O, there 's nothing at all in this region below 
So hollow and dead as their tinsel and show ^ 
When people who shimm.er in glory and gold 
Are blind to the beings that dwell in the cold ; 
When lights from their windows, that dazzle the 

poor, 
See most of true virtue outside of the door ! 

O, blessings for people, who, feasting to-day, 
Have thought of the little ones over the way; 



48 



CHARITY. 



Whose spirits, grown large at the board and the 

hearth, 
Cry welcome, to all the distressed of the earth ! 
O, blessings for people, who, hearing their moans, 
Have lifted the bare-footed out of the stones ! 



S E V P: N T Y , 

The sad Sixty-nine in the midnight has gone, 

And Seventy comes in his chariot on ; 

With light in his eye and a flush in his face, 

He enters the course and is in for the race. 

A fever of being, a fulhiess of joy 

Is throbbing the pulse of the animate boy. 

'Tis a glorious hope that his spirit reveals 

In the crack of his whip and the rush of his wheels. 



But life is a mockery — common decay 

Is big in the womb of the promising day ; 

For death hath a touch at the heart of the corn 

Ere light on the silk of its tassel is born ; 

And never a flower abandons the dust 

But foldeth a germ of the cankering rust ; 

And even the beautiful, bountiful year 

That Cometh to-day in its infimcy here, 

Is typed in the life of ephemeral bloom. 

For he driveth his chariot on to the tomb. 

F 49 



SABBATH SCHOOL BELLS. 

In the glow of a purple October — 

The nut-dropping time of the year — 
When leaves have a rustle of splendor, 

And branches in silver appear, 
As Cometh the sun to the Sabbath, 

Up out of the Orient hills, 
A sense of an Infinite Being 

The whole of humanity fills. 

Man sees in the passage of seasons. 

The regular transit of days, 
How great is Thy goodness, Jehovah ! 

How wondrous, O God, are Thy ways ! 
The steeple-bells over the churches 

That dot, in their whiteness, the land, 
Elate at the glad Sabbath morning. 

Ring out in a symphony grand ; 
And homes that are sprinkled with children 

A story of happiness tells, 



50 



SABBATir SCHOOL BELLS. 51 

When faces grow bright at the music 

That flows from the Sabbath School bells. 



Now out of the lane and the by-way, 

And out of the alley and street, 
With murmurous mingle of voices 

And musical patter of feet, 
The children of all of the people — 

The humble in state and the high, 
The rich in their Astrachan wrappings, 

The poor in their woolen — go by. 

And in at the arch of the chapel, 

Along in the sanctified aisles. 
They gather like earliest blossoms 

That Spring in her beauty beguiles ; 
And there, at the foot of the altar — 

A ground that is even at last — 
The hearts of the children are measured 

By Heaven's true standard of caste. 

The bells of the Sabbath are ringing 

Alike for the rich and the poor. 
And open the mine of the Bible 

To all who are seeking its store : 
No prince at the zenith of power. 

With nations on suppliant knees, 
Hath gems in his coronal decking 

That sparkle in fervor like these. 



52 



SABBATH SCHOOL BELLS. 

Come hither, O children, and gather 

The jewels God scatters to-day ; 
Here 's Honor, and Virtue, and Mercy, 

The riches that never decay ; 
Here 's knowledge that 's free to the orphan, 

The child of the wddow may learn — 
The prince and the pauper together 

May in at the vestibule turn. 

Come, children, glad-eyed and white-heartc 

And join in an anthem of praise ; 
Thank God for the voice in the steeple 

That heralds His holiest days ; 
Thank God for the boon of the Bible, 

The blessed Redeemer of men. 
The glorious plan of salvation 

Revealed in the beautiful Ten. 

Away with sectarian uses, 

The narrow confinements of creed ; 
The little one's heart is a garden 

Where Jesus should scatter the seed. 
Teach God as a merciful Father, 

The source and the fountain of love ; 
Not feared for His might, and the power 

He wields in the kingdom above. 
But honored and glorified ever 

For Charity, Mercy, and Love, 
The jewels to seek in the Bible 

And wear to the kingdom above. 



SABBATH SCHOOL BELLS. 53 

These grey-bearded men of the city, 

Worn out in the service of trade, 
Their foot-way, borne down from the sunlight, 

Is bent to the valley of shade ; 
And stories of struggle and sorrow 

The lines in their faces can tell, 
Since light-hearted children together 

They answered the Sabbath School bell. 



And often and often at midnight 

Their memory goes to the past. 
To wander again in the flowers 

That God in their passage had cast ; 
And up from .the glory of childhood, 

In mystical melody swells 
A sound that endureth forever — 

The song of the Sabbath Day bells. 



TYPE AND TIME. 



That stern old man, the Harvester. 

Who garners in the years, 
Whose passage up the fields of space 

A path of death appears ; 
Whose way is in the early grain 

Ere yet its golden hue, 
And bended head, and parting husk, 

Invite the sickle through ; 

That cold old man, whose arteries, 

At Mercy's plaint, congea^ 
And harden, that they may but show 

The blood's organic steel — 
He feels no pity, knows no shame, 

Nor spares nor passes o'er 
An atom in the widening plain 

That, trackless, lies before. 

He turns not back, but onward still, 
With steady, tireless sweep. 



54 



TYPE AND TIME. 55 

His burnished scythe goes through the reahri 

Forevermore to reap ; 
No Ruth of Moab in his wake 

With tender hands may glean, 
Nor stem nor stalk shall stand for her 

Where iron Time has been. 



But stolid eye and tuneless ear 

Shall quicken at a sound 
That floats above the reaper sphere, 

And spurns the harvest-ground ; 
For Time shall note, beyond the dust 

Of men and nations wrecked. 
The stately tread of Genius, 

And the march of Intellect. 



Whoso hath marked the lives of men. 

Their better words and deeds, 
May point some flower blossoming 

Above the trammel weeds ; 
Some growth hath struggled out the arms 

That undertwine the way, 
And lifts its scented splendor 

In the ardent upper day. 



Though blight and blast mav fell the stalk 

In seasons urging by. 
The essence of the flower still 

Is floatinii on the skv : 



56 



TYPE AND TIME. 

And free, beyond the reach of death, 

Upon the arch sublime, 
The souls of men of Intellect 

And Genius conquer Time. 

Go back along the shadow-days, 

And down their cycles run, 
And mark the lights from human lives 

Since human lives begun : 
Though countless legions in the throng 

Were stars that early set. 
The grand old planets of the past 

Are at the zenith yet. 

From out the darkness of an age 

That gave their genius birth, 
They rose above the atmosphere 

And battled down the earth ; 
And in the space, from every clime. 

And every class, are some 
Who prove how under-gravity 

Is grandly overcome. 

So let us live, and act, and be, 

That after-time may tell 
We were not in the reaper-way, 

Nor by the sickle fell ; 
But upward, over all that die, 

By force of human will, 



TYPE AND TIME. 57 



We cut a passage to the sky 
And hold the cether still. 



On those who gather here to-da}', 

Some lights, that ever show, 
Have come to shed their glory-ray 

From out the long-ago : 
The first old masters of an Art, 

Ere Genius yet was ripe, 
\\'ho threw the cruder stylus down 

To greet the coming Type ; 

Who from the cells of hooded monks. 

And sacrist scribes, and clerks, 
Were free to bear the outer world 

The magic of their works ; 
Who tore the vail of mystery 

From small Khorassans then 
That swayed the world with vellum scraps 

Of wisdom from the pen. 

The German Koster, first of all, 

Wliose carven letters came 
And gave the acts of noble men 

To glory and to fame ; 
Whose spirit, from the narrow groove 

That circumscribed his kind, 
Was bold to break the barrier 

And poach the fields of mind. 



58 TYPE AND TIME. 

The common chain that ignorance 

And superstition bound, 
His hght ambition scorned to wear 

Upon the trodden ground ; 
And men were taught forevermore 

That better path to climb, 
When KosTER sent the Bible up 

The avenues of Time. 



Though long ago his parchment sheets. 

And vellum scrolls, and leaves 
Were gathered by the Harvester 

And lie among the sheaves. 
We lift the science of his thought 

From out the rubbish lost. 
With honor to old Guttenberg 

And o-ratitude to Faust. 



Where'er the cunning Type is known 

Where'er the magic page 
Is stamped with living characters 

That photograph the age, 
The massive forms of Guttenberg, 

Of Faust, and Schceffer too, 
Shall stalk the aisles of learning 

And the paths of genius through. 



These are the planet-stars that shine 
For those who follow still 



TYPE AND TIME. ^g 

The science-way that leaves the vale 

And takes the stubborn hill ; 
These are the patron-saints — the gods 

Of energy and worth, 
That point us from Apprenticeship 

To Mastery on earth. 



And down the sparkled arch that bends 

Above these darker years, 
We hail the risen splendor 

Of our later pioneers ; 
The noble Franklin of our own, 

Whose hand of usefulness 
Was first to clutch the thunderbolt 

And draw the lever-press. 



The simple beauty of his life — 

The smooth and even pace 
With which he took the upper way 

x\nd won the honor race. 
Have left, through reaching history 

And ever-ringing fame. 
The civil world electrified 

And nervous wath his name. 



We hold the greatness of his brain, 

His openness and truth, 
The highest model for our men. 

The noblest for our youth ; 



6o TYPE AND TIME. 

The brawn-armed daily laborer — 
The ermined of the State 

May find, in Franklin's excellence, 
A life to emulate. 



And after him, above the verge, 

Our firmament can show 
The advent of another star — 

The scintillating Hoe ! 
The hot sheets from his cylinders 

O'er all the land are spread, 
To tell the world how Intellect 

And Genius are not dead. 



White-winged and free, across the sea 

His seeds of labor fly. 
And men must know, where'er they go. 

How Genius cannot die ; 
For all the soil of fertile brains 

With labor-seeds are rife — 
They germinate in fields of fame, 

And in the sands of life. 



As long as Christian temples bear 
Their turrets to the sun — 

As long as in our cycle lives 
The sands of Fame shall run. 

So long shall human hearts be glad, 
And human voices bless 



TYPE AND TIME. 6 1 

The master-hands that wrought the Type 
And reared the mairic Press. 



For us, who stand as Signal-men, 

Along the army track. 
And onward wave the messages. 

From flags that lessen back, 
How meet it is that arm, and eye, 

Should steady be, and true. 
To guard the honor of the post. 

And speed the signal through. 

We hold the symbol of a cause, 

A power in our hands. 
To point the army-march, and shape 

The destiny of lands ; 
To good, or ill, we guide the world. 

By virtue of our trust — 
For good, we lift the signal high — 

For ill, it trails the dust. 

When, here and there, a veteran 

And leader in the corps, 
Is signalled from the angel flags 

That flit the silent shore, 
He musters out of human strife. 

And treads the courts of fate — 
Our Harney's through the vestibule. 

Our Prentice at the gate. 

F 



62 TYPE AND TIME, 

God keep us in the goodly track, 

That leaves the ill behind ! 
God turn us to the flower-way 

Of love for humankind ! 
God give us grace to wield the Pen, 

And so direct the Press, 
That we may point our fellow-men, 

To ever-blessedness ! 



And Time may keep his steady sweep 

Throughout the fields of earth. 
And in the maze of autumn days 

May fell the latest birth; 
But human souls have higher goals. 

Where reapers never dare. 
And men shall rise beyond the skies, 

To shine forever there. 



MOUNT VERNON. 

Mount Vernon ! dear, neglected spot, 

I mourn for what thou art — 
A shapeless ruin and a blot 

Upon a nation's heart. 

Thy withered leaf, thy tangled vine. 

Thy dying trees and nude. 
Are but, alas ! the common sign 

Of human gratitude. 

Thy flowers all, that pleasures dear 

To Washington once gave, 
Forsaken and neglected here, 

Have died upon his grave ! 

Who would npt weep for very shame, 
His crumbling tomb beside ? 

63 



(34 MOUNT VERNON. 

To him a nation owes its fame, 
Its freedom and its pride ! 



To him the proudest king on earth 

Was bent submissive down ; 
He taught the world that Freedom's birth 

Was higher than the crown. 



His life was not that transient gleam 
That fades within the grave — 

The bubble on the placid stream, 
That bursts upon the wave ; 



But, like some fix.ed, eternal star. 

With steady, constant light. 
His soul streams through the future far. 

Still glorious and bright ! 



And what tho' Vernon's flowers now 

In silent dust are laid? 
The living wealth upon his brow 

Can never, never fade ! 



When thrones have fallen, empires died. 

Like leaves beneath the sun, 
Thy name shall still be spoke with pride, 

Immortal Washington ! 



MOUNT VERNON. g- 

Go plant fresh flowers by his grave ! 

Go bid Mount Vernon smile ! 
And give to him, who Freedom gave, 

An everlasting pile ! 



F* 



TYPES OF LIFE 



I SAW a star fall from its home 

In Heaven's blue and boundless dome, 

To gleam no more ; 
I saw a wave with snowy crest 
Thrown from the Ocean's stormy breast, 

Upon the shore. 

I saw a rose of perfect bloom 
Bend, fading to its wintry tomb 

In silent grief; 
I saw a living oak, but now. 
Touched by the storm, with shattered bough 

And withered leaf. 

The star had shone thro' countless years. 
And shed its rays like virgin tears, 

So pure and bright, 
That earth scarce knew the holy thrall, 
And only sighed to see it fall 
And fade in night. 
66 



TYPES OF LIFE. 

The wave hid wandered to and fro, 
With Ocean's ebb and Ocean's flow, 

From pole to pole, 
Till here upon the nameless strand 
It sank beneath the thirsty sand, 

Its final goal ! 

The rose sprang from a fallen seed, 
And smiled above the graceless weed. 

To greet the sun ; 
But 'neath the Winter's chilling breath, 
The lovely flow'rets' race to death 

Was quickly run. 

The living oak, with noble shade, 
Had stood the monarch of the glade, 

Thro' ages long ; 
But rifted by the lightning's glare, 
His sturdy arms grew brown and bare, 

And were not stroncr. 

And these are types of human lives j 
Man lives a little while and thrives, 

But withers fast. 
He sees a thousand lovely gleams. 
But wastes his life away in dreams, 

And falls at last. 



67 



THE PATH 



Just by the road we are journeying fast, 

Down to the Lake of Tears, 
A blind old man has tottered at last, 
Out of the Present into the Past, 

Over the brink of years. 

What were his virtues, what were his crimes. 

Nobody cares to-day ; 
Once he was ours — now he is Time's — 
For lives are but as murmuring chimes, 

Coming and going away. 

Up on the hill there 's a patter of feet — 

A voice in the flowers wild ; 
Carelessly down to the busy street. 
Many to pass, and many to meet, 

Rambles a little child. 
68 



THE PATH. 



69 



This is "the dead man's son and heir" 

Coming along the road ; 
He gathers the lightest treasures there, 
The violet bloom and crocus fair, 

Bearing a childish load. 

Soon he will be in the hurrying crowd. 

Pushing his way ahead — 
Some of them broken — some of them bowed. 
Some for the altar and some for the shroud. 

Some who are leading and led. 

Soon in the waj to the Lake of Tears, 

The little one's feet must go ; 
For thorns are thick in the path of years. 
And the way to death is a way of fears, 

AW down to the silent flow. 



THE BIVOUAC. 

A SOLDIER lay on the frozen ground, 
With only a blanket tightened around 

His weary and wasted frame ; 
Down at his feet, the fitful light 
Of fading coals in the freezing night 
Fell as a mockery on the sight, 

A heatless, purple flame. 

All day long, with his heavy load. 
Weary and sore, in the mountain road, 

And over the desolate plain ; 
All day long, through the crusted mud, 
Over the snow, and through the flood, 
Marking his way with a track of blood 

He followed the winding train. 



Nothing to eat at the bivouac 
But a frozen crust in his haversack 
70 



THE BIVOUAC, 7 1 

The half of a comrade's store — • 
A crust, that, after a longer fast. 
Some pampered spaniel might have passed. 
Knowing that morsel to be the last 

That lay at his master's door. 



No other sound on his slumber fell 

Than the lonesome tread of the sentinel — 

That equal, measured pace — 
And the wind that came from the cracking pine, 
And the dying oak, and the swinging vine, 
In many a weary, weary line, 

To his pale and hollow face. 

But the soldier slept, and his dreams were bright 
As the rosy glow of his bridal-night. 

With the angel on his breast ; 
For he passed away from the wintry gloom 
To the softened light of a distant room, 
Where a cat sat purring upon the loom, 

And his weary heart was blest. 



His children came, two blue-eyed girls. 
With laughing lips and sunny curls, 

And cheeks of ruddy glow ; 
And the mother pale, but lovely now. 
As when, upon her virgin brow 
He proudly sealed his early vow. 

In summer, long ago. 



^2 THE BIVOUAC. 

But the reveille wild, in the morning gray, 
Startled the beautiful vision away, 

As a frightened bird in the night j 
And it seemed to the soldier's misty brain 
But the shrill tattoo that sounded again, 
And he turned with a dull, uneasy pain^ 

To the camp-iires' dying light. 



HEART LESSONS. 

I HAD no design in passing — 

I was walking rather late — 
I did not dream that Rosa Gray 

Was standing at the gate ; 

And when the cloud passed over, 
And the moon revealed her there, 

With its ripple on her bosom 
And its shimmer in her hair, 

I was startled at the glory 

And the suddenness of light, 
That had silvered up the arches 

Over all the aisles of night. 

I had kept my passion hidden ; 

I had held it deathly still 
Through the vigor of my manhood. 

Through the power of my will. 

73 



74 



HEART LESSONS. 



Oh, the jDride in being master ! 

Oh, the dread of being slave ! 
Better wear the crimson fever 

In a by-way to the grave. 



Better hold it — hide it downward, 
Though the fibrous, vital man 

From the inner heat's expansion 
Into baser metal ran. 



Better feel the slowest fusion 
Of the being's finer parts, 

Than to show the garish colors 
And the flame of common heaits. 



But this sudden, white api>earance 
At the gate of Rosa Gray, 

Drove my real nature backward — 
Drove my stronger self away. 



Standing, queenly, where the moon-glow 
Brought its finish to her cheek. 

Where the star-eyes saw her breast-swells 
At the boddice-margin break, 



Some entire unknown sensation, 
From the heart's entangled wild, 

Broke amain upon my life-strings. 
And o'erswept me as a child. 



HEART LESSONS. 

She was looking far to seaward, 
And her outline shone so clear 

That she seemed a chiseled Silence, 
Cut from silver, leaning there. 

And the near Egyptian Lily, 
Bending from its marble vase, 

Might be fairer for her whiteness, 
Might be rarer for her grace. 

She was looking far to seaward, 
And the moon-jDath, silver laid, 

For the passage of her vision 
To the outer world, was made. 

She was lost in dreamy poems 

To the ever verseful sea, 
And the dimmest stars were nearer 

Than her soul was unto me. 

I approached her like a coward ; 

For the under-lying dew 
Scarcely sparkled at my foot-flill 

In its noiseless passage through. 

Rosa Gray," I said, and touched her 
From her meditative sleep — 

What of all this coral labor : 
Will it overcome the deep .'' 



75 



76 HEART LESSONS. 

" Mark you yonder reef, unbroken 

Through the foam-hne of its length : 
Has this boundless spread of water, 
Or the insect, greater strength ? 

" Mark you how the brine beats ever 
Up the still and steadfast wall : 
Do the spray-drops gather marble, 
That they whiten as they fall ? 

" There are grottos, arches, towers, 
Cities, islands building on : 
Will not Time proclaim a triumph 
When the Ocean shall be gone? 

" Come, now, Rosa Gray, and listen : 
Once my heart was all a sea. 
And the thought-ships furrowed o'er it, 
Bringing treasures unto me ; 

" Fair white sails fi-om isles of learning. 
Bringing knowledge unto me ; 
I was master of its commerce, 
I was monarch of the sea. 



" I could feel the waves go outward. 
And the wind-share cutting free 
Through the white-enameled furrows 
Of my great, expanding sea. 



HEART LESSONS. 

" You began your labor early 

In my heart-deeps, Rosa Gray, 
And my ships, and waves, and ocean, 
Long ago have passed away. 

" So you fill me now, and sway me, 
With the cunning of your skill ; 
I have neither force nor reason, 
I have neither way nor will. 

*' Speak me truthful v/ords, O mistress i 
In this fever of my mood ; 
Let my heart-valves force the chalice, 
Be it poison, down my blood ! " 

You have seen a twig inclining, 
Where, the liquid crystal found, 

Kept the murmur of its music 
In the alleys underground ; 

So I thought to find her spirit, 
So I sought to catch her tone, 

Where the magic of my circle 
Was the compass of her zone. 

And Rosa Gray Ijoked outward 
Once again toward the waves. 

And her eyes came o'er with pity 
As the dews come over leaves ; 
G * 



77 



HEART LESSONS. 



And my own eyes burning in them, 
Burning through the glassy flow, 

Saw her real being shrinking 
In the darkness far below. 



Little need for her to utter. 
Little need for her to move — 

Friend, I came not in the margin 
Of the shadow of her love. 

Mark you, now, I 'm looking backward, 
Somewhat further than it seems. 

Where the real things that met us 
Take the portraiture of dreams. 

There was no design in passing — 
I repeat here what I said — 

I but followed where the genius 
Of my meditation led. 

It was well I came upon her 

In that mystic, latter noon. 
When my heart gave off its burthen 

As the cloud went off the moon. 

It was well to yield my purpose 
To the sway of impulse then ; 

It was well to bring my greatness 
To the plane of common men. 



HEART LESSONS. 

It was meet that I, a beggar, 
Trailing ermine as a king, 

In her real, regal presence 

Should appear the lower thing. 

\Miat is human pride and purpose 
But a passion at the most ? 

Men are haunted through ambition, 
And their vanity's the ghost. 

For the lessons and the knowledge 
That she gave me, Rosa Gray, 

I would cast the garnered learning 
Of a former life away. 

And I mind me often, often. 
In my wanderings of late. 

Of the figure standing silent 
In the halo at the gate. 

And I tread the pathway backward. 
To that mystic, latter noon. 

When my heart gave off its burthen 
As the cloud went off the moon. 



79 



TIME AT THE SOUTH. 

In the shade of the pool, where the queen-hly dips, 
With the dew of the night on her beautiful lips ; 

Where blossoms the orange, where bloometh the rose. 
And the bright oleander and jessamine blows ; 

Tread lightly, tread softly, O merciful Time, 

O'er the land of the sun, and the lemon, and lime ; 

For leaves of the flowers so faded and strewn 
Were fair in the morning and fallen at noon. 

Go back to the plane of your ice-hidden lakes — 
Go back with your breath of the frost and the Tiakcr. ; 

Go Northward, O season of Winter and gloom, 
From the emerald South and its cdorous bloom. 

O, the purple dead leaves that environ the ways 
Of the genius of Time in its passage of days ; 

O, the late-fallen leaves and the withering grass — 
How they rustle, and gather, and people the pass ! 
So 



TIME AT THE SOUTH. 8i 

O, better to die and be hidden away, 

Than to live in the circle and sight of decay. 

Our metals of life in their crucibles run 

When the pulses are red in the glow of the sun. 

But come to the South with the ice of your heel, 
And the channels are still and the currents congeal. 

Go backward, O Winter, go back to the lakes. 
With your withering frost and your wandering flakes. 



The bush is borne down and the blossom is shed, 
And we gather to-day at the grave of the dead. 

The corse that is stark, and the body that's cold. 
Is a link of the past to be lost in the mold ; 

And armies may file to the sepulchre plain 
To laurel the bier of the body that's slain ; 

But never again, at the death of the years, 

Will the heart of the Southron be lavish of tears. 

Go seek in the far-reaching fields of his land, 
For the shade of his column and capital grand ; 

Go look for the mosque of his worship and pride ; 
Go look for his brother — go look for his bride ; 

Go look for all things he has cherished and loved- 
The garden he haunted, the valley he roved — 



82 TIME AT THE SOUTH. 

And the desolate track, and the ravens that fly, 
Will tell that the fount of the Southron is dry. 

Time was, when a sentinel stood at the gate, 
And guarded the annals and altars of state ; 

When the gleam of his eye and the glare of his blade 
Kept the wolf in the covert afar and afraid ; 

When the good and the pure, and the noble and true, 
Were all in the land that the sentinel knew : 

Time was when the tyrant would blanch in the sight 
Of the column and arch of our temple of right. 

When the marbles, of state in their purity stood. 
That our fathers had builded and hallowed in blood , 

But time is long gone with the sands of the glass, 
When honor was watchword, and inrtue the pass. 

Go banish the dust from your lexicons old, 
Ye people that glitter and seek to be gold , 

Go back to the schools of your earlier days. 
For their lessons of truth, and their jDatriot lays , 

Go study the greatness, that tried in the fires. 
Shone bright in the glory that covered your sires ; 

Go feel in the spell that encircles their graves 
That tyrants and cowards are meaner than slaves. 



TIME AT THE SOUTH. 



83 



Oh, men of the nation — oh, rulers and kings. 

Do ye know that your riches and powers have wings ?' 

Do ye know that the ashes ye scatter and spurn. 
Must quicken in time and arise from the urn ? 

Do ye know that the gates where ye gather your tolls, 
Are peopled with things that have pulses and souls ? 

Do ye dare, from your source in the dust and the clods, 
To covet the robes and the thrones of the gods ? 

Ye may look at the waves that go out on the sea, 
And learn from the past what your future will be ; 

For the ocean is broad, and the wave in its track. 
Must follow, and follow, and never come back. 

Ye are like to the waves that are gathered and tost. 
And driven to sea, to be scattered and lost — 

In the morn, ere the scent of the roses is o'er. 

Ye may sleep in the cove and the calm of the shore ; 

Ye may toy in the isles at the mellower noon. 
With your feathery spray and its murmurous tune ; 

But evening must come from the shadow at last, 
With a garment of gloom and' a gathering blast. 



DOUBLE LIFE. 

Over pools of purest water, 

Lying silent, there will come, 
Soon, or late, the green enamel 

Of a quickened herbage-scum ; 
Taking color from the vesture 

That the margin grasses wear, 
Till it hides the lambent sparkle 

Of the liquid crystal there. 

So the poet-nature shadows 

All its glory with a cloud, 
That the soul-light may not dazzle 

In the ordinary crowd; 
So they hide their real beings, 

So they live and act a part. 
Making nature but an adjunct 

To the perfectness of art. 

Oh, I hate this outward seeming. 
This unreal, double-life. 



84 



DOUBLE LIFE. 85 

Where the face is full of quiet 
While the heart is full of strife ; 

For our latent inner-currents 
Would to other currents run, 

Though the waters of the spirit 
Mav be hidden from the sun. 



We may live upon the surface, 

We may wear the mantle green, 
And among the outer beings, 

Be as outer beings seen ; 
But the spheres of souls magnetic 

Are beyond the common thrall, 
And the true life of the poet 

Pulseth under, after all. 



H 



THE LITTLE BOY GUIDING THE PLOW. 

When a bugle-note rang in the quivering trees, 

And a drum beat the nation to arms, 
Our people came up from the shore of the seas. 

And away from their blue-mountain farms ; 
All stalwart and strong as the hardy old pines. 

Or the wave-breaking rocks of the shore. 
They came in their long gleaming columns and lines, 

Till the bugle-note sounded no more. 
There are hearts in the ranks, as light as the foam; 

There are those of a gloomier brow ; 
And some who have left but a mother at home, 

With her little boy guiding the plow. 

There are silver-haired men, the tide in their veins 

Leaping down the red alleys of youth, 
All fresh as the water-fall thrown to the plains. 

And as pure as the beautiful truth ; 
There are sons too, and sires — the old and the 
young — 
In the midnight and morning of life, 
86 



THE LITTLE BOY GULDING THE PLOW. 87 

Who came from the hills and the valleys among, 

To be first in the glorious strife ; 
And many, how many beneath the blue dome, 

Are bending in solitude now. 
To plead for the weal of a mother at home, 

And her little boy guiding the plow ! 



Oh, the i^-ing of his heart, and the keenest of all 

That a wandering father may know. 
Is the vision of home Vv'ith its agony-call. 

Its hunger and shivering woe ; 
And who would not chafe in the sacredest chain 

At a memory bitter as this. 
Though he knev/ in his heart that each moment of 
pain 

Would but hallow his future to bliss? 
And who would not weep in a vision of gloom, 

When the Evil One whispered him how 
The toil grew apace to the mother at home, 

And her little boy guiding the plow ? 



But courage, keep courage, oh, parent away ! 

Be noble, and faithful, and brave ! 
And the midnight shall pass, and the glorious day 

Shall be shed over tyranny's grave ! 
Though a desolate thing is a fenceless farm. 

And as dreary, a furrowless field. 
Still, God in his mercy shall strengthen the arm 

Of the little boy asking a yield ; 



88 THE LIl^TLE BOY GUIDING THE PLOW. 

And the stubbornest clay shall be as the loam, 

When the patriot spirit shall bow, 
And ask for a friend to the mother at home. 

And her little boy guiding the plow. 

Oh, God will be kind to the needy and poor 

Who shall suffer from tyranny's hand ; 
His foot-print shall be by the loneliest door. 

And his bounty shall cover the land ; 
And broken the glebe in the valley and mead. 

Where the poorest and weakest shall be, 
And plenty shall spring of the promising seed. 

Till a people shall live to be free; 
And never, oh, never shall tyranny come. 

With iron-bound bosom and brow — 
May God give him back to the mother at home, 

And her little boy guiding the plow ! 



THE FLOWER GRAVES. 

From the fields that underlie us, 

Down the flowered South's incline, 
Where the vintage of the battles 

Took a deeper glow than wine ; 
When the early green of summer, 

Winning out the smitten gaze, 
Caught, from war, a sudden crimson. 

As of later autumn days ; 
Where the tangled, trodden grasses. 

And the fragment blades and shells. 
All the story of the struggle, 

More than eloquently tells ; 

From the salients and the centres, 

And the points of jealous guard, 
Where the trees and earth with missiles 

Bearing death were deepest scarred ; 
Where the tempered blade was needed, 

And the gallant arm to wield. 
For the honor and the glory 

And the guidance of the field ; 

II* 89 



90 



THE FLOWER GRAVES. 

In the surge and edge of carnage, 

In the battle's tidal flow, 
At the focus of the conflict, 

At the colors of the foe — 
There we sought, and there we found them — 

In the clotted field and fen — 
Found the relics, and the shadows. 

Of our grand and god-like men. 

Meet it is, oh widow — mother! — 

From this sweet, prolific May, 
Thus to bear its living garlands 

Through the winter of your way. 

Meet it is, O men and brothers ! 

Here amid the fallen great, 
These to glorify and honor 

As the noblest of your State. 

In the shadow of a column. 

Bearing upward to the day. 
Yonder carven marble semblance 

Of the ever-living Clay, 
Well it is that they should slumber, 

Who, beneath his power-tone, 
From the cradle-time of being, 

Into patriots had grown ; 
Who were early taught his lessons. 

And to noble paths inclined 



THE FLOWER GRAVES. 

By his scorn of crawling spirits, 
And the narrow grooves of mind ; 

Who were taught the worth of freedom, 
And the glory of such graves 

As should come before the shackles, 
And the curse of being slaves. 

Bring your garlands here, O sister. 
For the brother who is free. 

Who to brutal pomp and power 
Never bent a servile knee. 



For the cause in which he suffered, 

And the hearth and home-lands gone, 
Yet his ashes rise in witness 

At the courts of after-dawn — 
Let his banner bear the record 

Of an impulse in his blade. 
When the red track down an army 

Told the havoc he had made. 

Such an even-handed justice 
As the nation's cannot move. 

There will be in that tribunal. 
At the golden bar above. 

Bring the rose and lily hither, 
And the May-time's early bloom; 

Let us conquer now, with flowers. 
All the legions of the tomb ; 



91 



92 



THE FLOWER GRAVES. 

Let the green and living garlands 
Over all the mounds be shed, 

As, a token that the heroes 
Underlying, are not dead. 

Keep them fresh, O eyes of beauty, 

With the moisture of your tears, 
That their souls may haunt the flowers 

Down your summer-way of years. 
Keep them fresh with darling kisses ; 

Let them feel your bosom-sigh, 
And the thousand years of glory 

Shall not see the Southrons die. 



FALLEN 



The iron voice from yonder spire 
Has hush'd its hollow tone, 

"And midnight finds me lying here, 
In silence and alone. 

The still moon through my window 
Sheds its soft light on the floor, 

With a melancholy paleness, 
I have never seen before ; 

And the summer wind comes to me 

With its sad ^olian lay. 
As if burthened with the sorrows 

Of a weary, weary day ; 

Ikit the moonlight cannot soothe me 
Of the sickness here within, 

And the sad wind takes no portion 
From my bosom's weight of sin. 



9^ 



94 



FALLEN. 

Yet my heart and all its pulses 

Seem so quietly to rest, 
That I scarce can feel them beating 

In my arms, or in my breast : 

These rounded limbs are resting now 

So still upon the bed. 
That one would think, to see me here, 

That I was lying dead. 

What if 'twere so ? What if I died 

As I am lying now. 
With something like to virtue's calm 

Upon this pallid brow? 

What if I died to-night ? Ah, now 
This heart begins to beat — 

A fallen wretch, like me, to pass 
From earth, so sadly sweet ! 

Yet am I calm ! — as calm as clouds 
That slowly float and form. 

To give their burthen-tears in some 
Unpitying winter storm ; 

As calm as great Sahara 

E'er the simoom sweeps its waste — 
As the ocean, e'er the billows 

All its miles of beach have laced. 



FALLEN. 

Still, Still, I have no tears to shed ; 

These eye-lids have no store — 
The fountain once within me, 

A fountain is no more. 



The moon alone looks on me now, 

The pale and dreamful moon; 
She smiles upon my wretchedness, 

Through all the night's sweet noon. 

What if I died to-night — within 

These gilded, wretched walls, 
Upon whose crimson tapestry 

No eye of virtue falls. 

What would its soulless inmates do 
When they had found me here, 

With cheek too white for passion's smile, 
Too cold for passion's tear? 

Ah ! one would come, and from these arms 

Unclasp the bauble bands ; 
Another, wrench the jewels from 

My fairer, whiter hands. 

This splendid robe, another's form 

Would grace, oh, long 1)efore 
The tender moon-beam shed again 

Its silver on the floor. 



95 



96 FALLEN. 

And when they'd laid me down in earth 
Where pauper graves are made, 

Beneath no drooping willow-tree 
In angel-haunted shade, 

Who'd come and plant a living vine 

Upon a wretched grave? 
Who'd trim the tangled grasses wild 

No summer wind could wave? 

Who would raise a stone to mark it 
From ruder graves around, 

That the foot-fall of the stranger 
Might be soft upon the ground? 

No stone would stand above me there — 

No sadly bending tree, 
No hand would plant a myrtle vine 

Above a WTctch like me. 



What if I died to-night ! — and when 

To-morrow's sun had crept 
Where late the softer moonlight 

In its virgin beauty slept. 

They'd come and find me here — oh, who 
Would weep to see me dead? 

Who'd bend the knee of sorrow 
By a pulseless w^anton's bed ? 



FALLEN. 97 

There's one would come — my mother ! 

God bless the angel band 
That bore her, ere her daughter fell, 

To yonder quiet land ! 

Thank God for all the anthem-songs 

That gladdened angels sung. 
When my mother werit to heaven, 

And I was pure and young ! 

And there's another too would come — 

A man upon whose brow 
My shame hath brought the winter snow 

To rest so heavy now. 

Ah ! he would come with bitter tears 

All burning down his cheek, — 
Had reason's kingdom stronger been 

When virtue grew so weak ! 

My sisters and my brothers all, 

Thank God ! are far away ! 
They'll never know how died the one 

That mingled in their play; 

They'll never know how wretchedly 

Their darling sister died. 
The one who smiled whene'er they smiled, 

Who cried whene'er they cried. 

I 



98 FALLEN. 

For him that sought a spotless hand. 

And lives to know my shame, 
In such a place I'd tear the tongue 

That dared to speak his name. 



The cold sea-waves run up the sand 

In undulating swells, 
And backward to the ocean turn 

When they have kissed the shells ; 



So, there's a torrent in my breast, 

And I can feel its flow 
Rush up in crimson billows 

On a beach as fair as snow ; 

And backward, backward to my heart, 

The ocean takes its tide, 
My cheeks and lips left bloodless all. 

And cold, as if I died ! 



I'm all alone to-night ! How strange 

That I should be alone ! 
This splendid chamber seems to want 

Some roue's passion-tone ! 



Yon soulless mirror, with its smooth 

And all untarnished face. 
Sees not these jewelled arms to-night. 

In their unchaste embrace — 



FALLEN. 

Oh, I have fled the fever 

Of that heated, crowded hall. 

Where I might claim the highest-born 
And noblest of them all : 



Where I might smile upon them now 

With easy, wanton grace, 
Which subdues the blood of virtue 

That would struggle in my face. 

I hate them all — I scorn them, 
As they scorn me in the street ; 

I could spurn away the pressure 
That my lips too often meet j 

I could trample on the lucre 

That their passion never spares : 

They robbed me of a heritage 
Of greater price than theirs. 

They can never give me back again 
What I have thrown away, 

The brightest jewel woman wears 
Throughout her little day ! 

The brightest, and the only one, 
That from the cluster riven, 

Shuts out forever woman's heart 
From all its hopes of Heaven I 



99 



lOO FALLEN. 

What if I died to-night ? — and died 

As I am lying here ! 
There's many a green leaf withered 

Ere autumn comes to sear : 



There's many a dew-drop shaken down 

Ere yet the sunshine came, 
And many a spark hath died before 

It wakened into flame. 

What if I died to-night, and left 
These wretched bonds of clay 

To seek beyond this hollow sphere 
A brighter, better day? 

What if my soul passed out, and sought 
That haven of the blest 
"Where the wicked cease from troubling, 



The weary are at rest" 



Would angels call me from above, 
And beckon me to come 

And join them in their holy songs 
In that eternal home ? 



Would they clasp their hands in gladness 
When they saw my soul set free. 

And pomt-bcside my mother's — 
To a place reserved for me ? 



FALLEN. 10 1 

Would they meet me as a sister, 

As one of precious worth 
Who had gamed a place in Heaven 

Ey holiness on earch? 

O God ! 1 would not have my soul 

Go out upon the air 
With all its weight of wretchedness, 

To wander, where — oh, where? 



MIDNIGHT BELLS. 

Ho ! yc who wait where sleeps in state 
The silent form of Sixty-Eight, 
Where from the shadows blue and far 
Has come his glinting taper-star, 
Where from the carboned upper dark 
The crystal scalings of its arc. 
In fitful, hither, thither ways. 
Are driven like the drifting days, — 
Now o'er the winter fields and fells 
Ye hear the sobbing Midnight Bells. 

Ho ! ye whose tears were shed on biers 
Of other gray and gathered years, 
Why weep ye now, and watch, and wait. 
Beside the corse of Sixty-Eight? 
The widowed hills, the orphan vales. 
May give their anthems and their wails j 
May wear their garb of mourning white 
Along the pathways of the night, — 
But Ye ! why heed ye now the knells ? 
Why hearken still the Midnight Bells ? 



MIDNIGHT BELLS. 

The sunlight smiles through airy miles 
On fair and flowered summer isles, 
And earth in green and living things, 
So gladdened with its lightsome wings, 
Floats wanton where the odor-breeze 
Goes out the shining summer seas ; 
But winter from her secret caves 
Creeps darkling o'er the ocean waves, 
And sad and far from o'er the swells 
The bloom has heard its Midnight Bells. 



O men who know how sure and slow 
The tides of time must ebb and flow ; 
How one by one the waves must reach 
And bear their tribute from the beach, 
How sure the sands upon the lea 
Go outward to the central sea. 
And buried are in hollow^ grooves 
Where slow th' eternal current moves, — 
Why pause they where the sounding shells 
Bear echoes from the Midnight Bells ? 



The nations rise, and through the skies 
The clamor of their glory flies ; 
Their flaunting pennons out the gales 
Go with the sunlight and the sails. 
And spicy isles and frozen zones 
Their splendor and their power owns ; 
But deathless Time — eternal Time ! 
He heeds no king, he knows no clime : 



103 



104 



MIDNIGHT BELLS. 

And over wars, their shouts, their yells, 
He peals the nations' Midnight Bells. 

The great, the grand, who gave the land 

Their crimson for its right to stand ; 

Who on their swords of valor brought 

Our right of action and of thought ; 

Who piled their way from kings and thrones 

With such a hecatomb of bones, — 

Their hearts are still, their forms are cold, 

Their very deeds beneath the mold, 

And scarce the country's record tells 

How we have heard their Midnight Bells. 

When tyrant knaves make freemen slaves, 
And tread the sod of sacred graves ; 
When in the darkness and the dust 
They give our sabres to the rust ; 
When in our cells no sound remains 
Above the voices of the chains ; 
When all but memory is dead. 
And Time alone hath ceaseless tread, — 
Oh, joy to know a chain foretells 
The clanking of their Midnight Bells ! 

For men whose souls amid the shoals 
Are fearless in the tidal rolls ; 
Who move with shackles on their arms 
As proudly in the face of storms 



MIDNIGHT BELLS. 

As they whose ermine drapes the gates 
Of conquered Empires, fallen States, — 
To them shall come no craven gloom, 
No haunting shadow of the tomb, 
No fear of death, no shrieking hells. 
When Freedom swings her Midnight Bells. 



The fairest' stream that like a dream 
Goes down the land, a silver seam ; 
The stars that show their golden glow 
On things that slumber here below ; 
The waves, the sea, the earth, the sky, 
All things that live and all that die ; 
The great, the good, the weak, the strong, - 
To Time Eternal all belong, 
And soon or late must come their knells 
From sad and solemn Midnight Bells. 



In virtue's way to endless day. 

Beyond the margin's reaching gray, 

Beyond the ether's thick'ning spread, 

Beyond the world, beyond the dead, — 

Let men, let nations cast their eyes 

Toward the opening Paradise, 

Till all the hopes and all the fears, 

Till all the chains and all the wars 

Are lost forever in the swells 

When Heaven tolls our Midnight Bells. 



fo5 



AFTER THE WAR. 

We have filled with recollections 
All our calumets to-day, 

And from this clearer present 
Floats the cloudy past away. 

We have burned to finer ashes 
All the debris of the years, 

That so late amid the home-lands 
Brought us misery and tears. 

Farewell to all the memories 
That preyed upon our souls, 

That made us in our carnage-time 
A populace of ghouls. 

Farewell to every record-mark 
Of cruelties and crimes, 

And a welcome to the sunlights 
Of dawning better times. 
1 06 



AFTER THE WAR. 107 

Already from the havoc-fields 

Where rolled the battle-drums, 
The busy beat of hammers 

And the din of labor comes ; 

The plowshare in the sodden ground 

Its fruitful passage takes, 
And toil is in its triumph 

From the bayous to the lakes. 

O blessed land ! where swords are drawn 

To hew the armied grain, 
Where lines of corn are stricken down 

Upon the harvest plain ; 

Where every stalk beneath the stroke 

In golden beauty bows, 
And men are counted noble 

Who have sweat upon their brows. 

O blessed land ! O land of toil, 

And land of human love. 
There are pages of repentance 

In thy records up above ; 

And onward, onward through the days 

Of glory yet to come 
Shall march thy legion labor, 

Shall beat their anvil-drum. 



lo8 AFTER THE WAR. 

Our sinews strong from North to South 
Are wrought of iron bands, 

And rivers wind like silver threads 
Adown our shining sands. 

Brave Progress with her certain pulse, 
Her mighty breath of steam. 

Goes out in power on the earth. 
In glory on the stream. 

And Westward far, by plains a-bloom 
And mountains rich in ore, 

Our engines bear their burthens 
To the great Pacific shore. 

Our sails are white on all the seas. 
With gleaming tracks behind — 

At peace to-day with all the world ! 
Good-will to all mankind ! 



Thus much for all the nation 
As a grand majestic whole, 

Made up of smaller portions 
As our acts make up the soul. 

God hath trusted us with talents. 
Each and all of us a trust ; 

Howsoe'er we please to use them, 
He is merciful and just. 



AFTER THE WAR. 

Let US do our share of labor, 
Let us toil and sweat to-day, 

Let us lift our burthened neighbor 
From his falling by the way. 

Every impulse of our kindness, 
Every act we do of love. 

Hath its record to our credit 
In the archives up above. 



By the broad and fair Ohio, 
In the rich lands of the West, 

We have builded up our mansions, 
Here to live and here to rest; 

And the long grass waves in greenness 

Over plains and over hills. 
And the sunlight gives its shimmer.' 

To the ever-going rills. 

Land of Peace and land of Plenty ! 

Richer far than any yet : 
May thy rising sun of glory 

In the shadow never set ! 



Goodly arms and sturdy spirits 
Over all thy fi-elds be spread ; 

Teach the children of thy people 
To be proud to earn their bread ! 
J 



109 



no AFTER THE WAR. 

Never plowman trod the furrow 
Of a richer soil than ours, 

To a bosom more prolific 

Never came the summer showers \ 

Corn and wheat in rolling billows 
Flood the acres with their gold, 

And the strata spreading under 
Have a hidden wealth untold. 



Build the lordly track of iron 

Through the pasture-lands and fields, 
That its greater strength may gather in 

And garner up the yields ; 

Let the palpitating engines 

Spread their steam adown the valleys, 
And the woodlands hanging over 

Keep its echo in their alleys. 

Send the golden harvest outward. 
Bear away the corn and kine ; 

Open up the secret treasure 
Of the underlying mine ; 

Show the world your share of riches, 
Give to commerce what you can; 

Show the dignity of labor 
And the worthiness of man ! 



SIXTY-FIVE. 

If a nation hath not goodness then it never can be 

great, 
For there's nothing like to virtue in the building of 

a State. 
Though you bring your quarried marble from a mul- 
titude of miles, 
And rear it into palaces and monumental piles ; 
Though with dome and arch and column you may 

beautify the land, 
Making earth and air and water pliant agents in your 

hand, 
Still without the seal of virtuj on the charter of your 

State, 
In the eyes of Christian people you are neither good 

nor great ; 
In the eyes of God Almighty you are only great in 

sin. 
And he'll weigh you in the autumn when His .A.ngel 

garners in. 

Ill 



112 SIXTY-FIVE. 

Let us look a moment calmly o'er the little season 

gone ; 
Let us mark the boggy places in the road we journey 

on : 
There are others to come after in the path which we. 

have trod, 
Let us point them from the quicksand to the way 

upon the sod. 



There were mighty throes upon us when we ushered 

in the year 
Which yesterday in solemn shroud we saw upon its 

bier ; 
There were throes as if a giant on our being bent a 

knee, 
Admonishing of what we were and what we sought 

to be ; 
We had coffers heavy laden, we had ships upon the 

brine, 
We had fallow-lands and vineyards with their effer- 
vescing wine ; 
We were strong and stern and haughty from the 

growth of years before. 
And our plenitude of glory only made us crave the 

more : 
Not such glory as the Christian, in the presence of 

his God, 
Hath to come upon his spirit when he bows to kiss 

the rod ; 
But the vanity of power and the strength of human 

pride. 



SiXTY-FIVE. 



113 



That bad made us scorn the virtues and the honors 

as they died : 
So a hand was hiid upon us, and our glory stripped 

away 
As one might strip a flower-stem upon an autumn 

day. 



We have conquered many battles, we have gained a 

world-renown, 
We have driven gallant armies and have shaken cities 

down ; 
W^e have laid a land in ashes, we have made a people 

slaves. 
We have carried golden trophies from a citadel of 

graves ; 
There's blood upon our bayonets and blood upon 

our guns, 
And some of it's our brothers' blood and some of 

it's our sons'. 
"What boots it how we triumphed so a victory was 

gained ! 
Who wears the whiter garment may expect to have 

it stained ! " 
I'hus spoke we in our vanity, our ecstasy of pride, 
As one who goes rejoicing o'er the grave of one that 

died ; 
So climbed we up the pathway to the pinnacle of 

sin. 
And o'er the gulf of darkness we were calmly look- 
ing m. 

.1* 



114 SIXTY-FIVE. 

But the wrath of God was on us, and we felt His 

mighty hand 
As he stripped the mad ambition of its garments in 

the land. 
We were " proud and strong and haughty," but within 

a little day 
We have seen our gilded treasures fast as bubbles 

float away : 
We are wrecked in pride and fortune ; we were rich, 

and we are poor ; 
There's a coflin in our dwelling and a sexton at our 

door. 



Let us turn the crimson pages in the record-book of 
war : 

There are giant sins upon us, giant crimes to answer 
for: 

There are cities laid in ashes, there are desolated 
farms ; 

There are starving children crying in their helpless 
mother's arms ; 

There are widows, there are orphans, cold and home- 
less in the land, 

With the husband and the father lying fleshless on 
the sand; 

There is woe and want and sorrow over all the South- 
ern States ; 

From within the nation's chamber, we can hear it at 
the gates ; 

Yet our flags are flaunting bravely, and our music 
fills the air, 



SIXTY-FIVE. 11^ 

For the burthen of the sorrow it is not for us to 

bear ; 
We have prison-cells and dungeons thickly peopled 

with the foe, 
And some have on the gibbet died, and some are 

dying slow. 



Such a fever and such passion over all the North 

has swept, 
That though weeping Mercy pleaded, it hath never 

known she wept ; 
And the vengeful cry for slaughter from the Puri- 
tanic crowd. 
In the halls of central power hath an echo fierce 

and loud ; 
From the Northern press and pulpit, from the bench 

and from the bar, 
Cometh all the evil pleading of a fury after war. 
And but a little while it seems, when frenzy ran so 

high 
The nation by a gallows stood to see a woman die — 
A woman weak and trembling and as guiltless as a 

child, 
But a victim to the fury of a passion fierce and wiivl. 
And here the high offended God put forth His hand 

again, 
To write upon the nation's brow the burning mark 

of Cain. 
Again for Wirz, the foreigner, a wretched feeble man, 
But yesterday we filled his cup until it over-ran ; 



il6 SIXTY-FIVE. 

And one by one we lessen them, these victims to our 

hate, 
And there's a thirst for human blood an ocean can 

not sate. 



At our helm we had a despot, and for him this crim- 
son tide, 
A Nero who could revel while his better subjects 

died ; 
But the Mighty Hand o'ertook him in his revel and 

his wrong, 
And it taught us in our weakness that the Deity 

was strong. 
There are those who call him martyr, there are those 

who call him great : 
After passion cometh reason — let the better spirits 

zvait ; 
As the water finds its level, so the characters of men — 
Some may die and be forgotten, some may die and 

live again. 
There's a gray-haired man in prison, under iron bolt 

and bar, 
A relic and a trophy from the desolating war ; 
Pie was once a mighty leader, such as few are born 

to be ; 
He had armies in the nation, he had ships upon the 

sea ; 
Di:t our strength in war was greater, for we crushed 

him with our might, 
And we watched his day of glory as it settled into 

nio-ht. 



SIXTY-FIVE. 



117 



Now we hold him bound and shackled, with a palsy- 
in his arm j 

We have seized and sacked his temple, he is power- 
less for harm. 

But to crush and break his spirit, and to take away 
his all. 

For the crime of Revolution was a punishment too 
small ; 

And the nation must have vengeance, for her women 
cry for blood — 

Though it runs a mighty torrent they would have it 
run a flood. 

God forgive them all their passion ! God forgive them 
all their sin ! 

From their hearts drive out the anger, and invoke the 
mercy in ! 



There's another cry of sorrow from the liberated 

black ; 
There is want among his children, and blood upon 

his track. 
From his proper grade and level they have thought 

to lift him up, 
And he glories at their banquet with a poison in his 

cup. 
From his love and from his labor they have taken 

him away, 
And the gloomy night is crowding over all his sunny 

day. 
We can hear him in the darkness giving out his bit- 
ter moan, 



Ii8 SIXTY- FIVE. 

While for all the bread he asketh they have only 

found a stone. 
Let him freeze and let him hunger — they are blind 

and cannot see ; 
It is food and cloth and shelter, and a glory to be 

FREE. 

O ye great and godly Christians ! O ye Puritanic 

souls, 
Have ye lost your human spirits ? are ye demons ? 

are ye ghouls? 
Was it not enough to wreck him in his hopes and in 

his all. 
That ye triumph so and revel at his miserable fall? 

Though the sins of all the nation in their multitude 

are great, 
There are crimes as black and cruel in the records 

of our State ; 
For Kentucky (God forgive her), though she sought 

to do the best, 
F:om the black and base attrition grew as callous 

as the rest. 
There were those who did her murder in the guise 

of right and law ; 
There's the blood of Hunt upon her, and of Corbin 

and McGraw ; 
And there's such a cry of sorrow from the grave of 

bleeding Long, 
As should pale the cheek of hatred in its memory of 

the wrong. 



SIXTY-FIVE. 119 

God forgive us all our errors ! God forgive us all our 

crimes ! 
We have lived in sin and darkness — let us hope for 

better times. 



TO MASTER GEO. W. JOHNSTON 

In youth, my boy, I pray you keep 

This simple truth in view : 
That men are only counted great 

For goodly things they do. 

The man who lives an aimless life, 

Nor labors every day, 
Belongs to that ephemera 

That passes soon away ; 

But he who takes the labor-tools 

And seeks the science-fields, 
Will find the noble harvest that 

The golden autumn yields. 

The way to fame is over-grown 
With tangled weeds and vines. 

And many take the trodden path 
That from the goal inclines ; 



TO MASTER GEO. W. JOIIXSTO.V. 

But you, my boy, with compass true, 
Must keep the bearing straight, 

And cut the stubborn obstacles 
That lie before the gate. 

Be guided by the honor-laws 
That gave your kindred name, 

And keep the course that ushered them 
Within the walls of fame : 



And when at last the honor-roll 
Above the world is spread. 

You will not blush to find your name 
Is written at the head. 



121 



HIS LAST DAY. 

As one who from his native place 

In tender youth had turned, 
To feel the brown upon his face 

By distant solstice burned ; 
Who, journey-worn and scarred and sore. 

And sickened with the past, 
Has reached again his father's door. 

And tottered in at last ; 

As one whose memory at home 

Is slowly fading out, 
Whose features to his kindred come 

In mistiness and doubt ; 
Who from the sea has turned again 

The ingle-side to share, 
And fled the haunts of stranger men 

To be a stranger there. 

So I, to-night, a loiterer 
In other paths and lands, 



HIS LAST DAY. 123 

From struggle-scenes and wreck and fear, 

And death upon the sands, 
Have turned again an eager gaze 

Upon the homeward track, 
And through the mist and through the maze 

Have slowly travelled back. 



Here home at last ! ah, Home no more ! 

For time hath hurtled through, 
And faces that I study o'er, 

Alas ! are strange and new ; 
All new ! all strange, save only one. 

The old Familiar there ; 
And Time his silver-work hath done 

Upon the master's hair. 



I keep the outline of his face 

As faithfully of late, 
As when with early artist-grace 

I " did him " on the slate : 
The kindly eye, the open brow, 

The lips that ever smiled, 
I mark them just as truly now 

As when I was a child. 

The bold front teeth, the queer-turned nose 

(Your pardon, sir, I pray). 
The forward step upon the toes, 

They seem like yesterday. 



124 



HIS LAST DAY. 

Though Time hath fled with gray and brown, 

I mark him just as well 
As when he pulled the old rope down 

And tied me to the bell. 

Full thirty years have fleeted by 

Since first the school began, 
And fi-om a little urchin I 

Have grown to be a man ; 
But I would dash the cares of men 

And give — I cannot tell — 
If he could take me back again 

And tie me to the bell. 

The dear companions of my class, 

Habit ices at play, 
Have some of them gone down the glass, 

And some live great to-day. 
I've watched the progress of them all. 

And in the ways of fame 
I hear at every honor-call 

Some well-remembered name. 

The pulpit and the bench and bar, 

The science-fields of earth, 
The blood-red annals of the war 

Are vocal with their worth. 
Throughout the land, from East to West, 

From Erie to the Keys, 
The spirits known and loved the best 

Were nurtured here — like these. 



HIS LAST DAY. 

When late, for sad fraternal strife 

Our battle lines were drawn, 
And North and South alike were rife 

With armies marching on, 
A portion of the early class 

On either side were found ; 
And some are 'neath the trampled grass. 

And some live yet renowned. 

All honor to the dust of those 

Who in the struggle fell, 
Who grew as friends but met as foes, 

And fought each other well ; 
Their soldier-graves shall long attest 

To future passers-by, 
That dnlce ct decoriun est 

P)-o pairia inori. 



I come to-night with weary heart 

And saddened eye, to find 
Some vestige of the scholar-art 

Left years ago behind: 
The labors of the early age. 

The mysteries of school, 
The art to scan a Virgil page, 

The Algebraic rule. 



From other scenes and other toils 
Too late, alas ! I turn ; 



125 



126 BIS LAST DAY. 

The science-lamps their sacred oils 
No more for me shall burn. 

The springs of youth that joyous sped 
Their courses to the river, 

Have mingled with the waves, and fled 
The flower-ways forever. 

What though a stranger in the throng 

That now the master sways, 
I claim the right to give my song 

The flush of other days ; 
And here upon this honored stand 

A gratitude to show 
To him who gave a guiding hand. 

So many years ago. 

Ah, more than all, to-night should band 

The early friends and true, 
To take the master's honest hand, 

And bid him here adieu ; 
Nay, let the gush of tender years 

Adown their channels run ; 
The labor of his thirty years 

Is well and nobly done. 



ELMWOOD. 

I, ALONE of all at Elmwood — 

I, alone of all, 
Hear the night-sands dropiDing slowly, 

Hear them as they fall. 
Over me the sjDirit's slumber 

That these moments brine. 
Has not cast the sombre shadow 

Of the night's 



Wakeful now, and full of feeling 

As the stars of light, 
I can count the even-pulses 

Beating through the night; 
I can count the palpitations 

Of the vision-driven hearts, 
By the great magnetic power 

Which poetic night imparts. 

There is one of all at Elmwood, 
One alone of all, 



127 



12 8 ELM WOOD. 

Who would start to know her pulses 

Echoed up the hall — 
Echoed up the gloomy stairway 

And along the quiet hall — 
One who in the glaring day-time 

Never beats a pulse at all. 

Oh I read her, now she sleepeth ; 

Feast upon her dream ; 
Catch the real of her spirit 

In its glory-beam. 

We are strangers at the noontide ; 

She a study deep to me, 
She a language dead, a scripture 

Upon tablets in the sea. 
But I read her now at midnight — 

Read her very soul ; 
Oh, I creep upon her slumber 

Silent as a ghoul ; 
And I feast upon her vision — 

Feast upon it, at the price 
Which rave Adam wondrous knowledge, 

Whilst it lost him — Paradise! 



RESPONSE — IMPROMPTU. 

I DO not forget 3-011 — I never have thought 

A moment to check the sweet flow of our love ; 

I cannot forget what so lately you taught, 

I cannot throw clown the bright wreath that you 
wove. 



Oh the young bird of Hope, with its plumage of truth. 
That flits in the noontide of life's early spring, 

Hath a season so brief in the gardens of youth 
That flowers but once feel the rush of its wins:. 

Not so when the sun has passed over the hill, 
To the autumn of life wath its yellower sheaves ; 

If Hope comes at all. Oh its melodies fill 

In the lone: afternoon all the murmurins: leaves. 



I do not forget you — no, no! while my heart 

Hath been touched with the shadow of seasons 
gone by, 

129 



130 ' J^ESPONSE — IMPR OMP TU. 

While lamp after lamp hath gone out at the start, 
I cannot believe that all passions will die. 



I pray you forego every thought that would give 
But a color of falsehood to what I have said ; 

'Twere shame that a spirit so faithless should live — 
'Twere better a friendship so hollow w^ere dead. 

Then let us strike hands in that honester way 
That tells to ourselves we are unriven friends ; 

So when life shall have come to its twilight and 
gray, 
We may smile at the silvery thread that it sends. 



BEAUTY 



She's not what you would simply call a woman, 
A thing for this poor world's possession ; 

There's something in her beauty more than human, 
And far beyond expression. 

Most woman-kind are only like the flowers 

That blow at noon to wither at the gloaming ; 

But she shall wander down my latest hours, 
And be forever blooming:. 



131 



TO KATY. 

Dear Katy, while I bless the hour 

That brings thine image up, 
As fondly as some heated flower 

The dew-drop in its cup, 
I backward turn my aching eyes. 

Through long and weary years, 
To those who hear my saddest sighs. 

Who claim my sacred tears. 

I greet thee as an angel fair 

Come by my gloomy hearth, 
A thing divine, a spirit rare, 

An excellence on earth. 
I love thee, Katy, for thy smile 

Shed o'er my frowning sky, 
As sunlight through the dreary aisle 

I'm moving down to die. 

For thee -my lips with joyous words 
Should ever laden be, 



TO KATY. 133 

Whilst thou wilt touch the music-chords 

To happy tunes for me ; 
But, ah ! dissemble how I can, 

There is no pathic art 
To stay the early tide that ran 

All riot in my heart. 

To her upon whose gentle breast 

My little children sleep, 
My soul goes ever back to rest. 

To worship and to weep ; 
And backward, backward, through the years 

Of sorrow I have known. 
My heart still wanders on to hers, 

Mine only and mine own. 

Dear Katy, when thy winsome eye 

Hath wooed me down the lawn, 
I could not always tell thee why 

My happy thoughts were gone ; 
But thou, an angel in my way, 

A spirit by my side, 
Forgav'st the burthened mind astray 

With hopes that early died. 

Oh bless thee for thy kindly care, 

Oh bless thee for thy smile ! 
May Heaven greet thy virtues rare 

Beyond this world of guile ; 
And when from joy and sorrow here 

Thy path is at the sea, 
May such sweet flowers strew thy bier 

As thou hast thrown on me ! 

L 



SECOND MARRIAGE. 

Throw back the bright tresses that shadow thy brow, 

And let it look sunny and free ; 
The flowers are blooming to circle it now, 

And a summer time opening to thee. 

Thou hast felt the chill blast of a Jong winter's day. 
Whilst the stream in thy heart hath run cold ] 

But the ice-frozen fetters are melting away, 
And the story of winter is told. 

Oh let not a tear for the slumbering past 

Bedim the bright star in thine eye, 
But cherish the gleam that hath wakened at last 

From its sleep on a lovelier sky. 

There still is a chord in the lute of thy heart 

That sorrow has never swept o'er, 
And gently and sweetly its music will start 

By the stream that is frozen no more. 
134 



MIDNIGHT AT SALT-SULPHUR. 

With a snow-covered earth and a star-hidden sky, 
Here is splendor enough for the wantonest eye. 

Far up on the mountain the crystalline trees 
Are still in the pause of the musical breeze, 
And the wandering limbs intermingle above, 
As clinging together in passionate love. 

The erst-frowning rocks in a virginal white, 
Bereft of their shadow, are smiling in night : 
And the fair little stream, with its mystical flow, 
Looks a silvery thread on a garment of snow. 

A spirit might come from its region of bliss. 
To stray in a midnight as lovely as this. 

Could I brush every vestige of earth from my brow. 
And die in a night-time as witching as now, 
Oh, a moment of life in that beautiful sky 
Were worth every pang it would give me to die. 

135 



SMOKE- PICTURES. 

I SIT at my window this sweet Sabbath even, 
More bent upon earth than intent upon Heaven, 
And trace the cloud-pictures that, floating afar. 
Have gone at a breath from my fragrant cigar. 

I catch through the smoke as it wantons away. 
Like mist on the mountain-top scattered at day, 
A glimpse here and there of the vistas and groves 
Where youth flitted by with its passions and loves. 

All green are the leaves, and as pleasantly still 
I feel the wood-zephyrs abroad on the hill; 
The vines reach above and the branches enwreathe, 
While shadows fall soft on the verdure beneath. 

No tinge of the autumn, no blight of the fall, 
But summer, sweet summer, is over it all. 

Oh, I fancy sometimes as I muse in the gloom, 
With a friendly cigar to enrapture the room, 
136 



SMOKE-PICTURES. 137 

That winters may thicken and over me throw 
Their garments as white as the silvery snow, 
And dull to my eyes may the flowers appear 
When woman-like summer embraces the year, 
When' birds in the branches with winningest strain 
Would waken my soul to the music in vain ; 
That age with its chillest and woefulest way 
May come to my heart in my life's lattef day, 
And Time, the remorseless, may beckon me on 
Through ways where the weakest and oldest have 

gone — 
As downward I tread to the brink of the river. 
Whose waters flow silent forever and ever, 
Still, still to my eye, though its vision be dark. 
These pictures of youth shall pass out as an ark ; 
And o'er the sad waves of the Stygian stream 
The sun of my Past shall so ardently beam. 
That not the still tide in its passage of gloom. 
Nor yet the cold brink where I look in my tomb, 
Can fright me away from Ihe memory dear 
Of loves never dead and of leaves never sere ; 
But still in the light of my dream-haunted eyes, 
These visions of youth shall forever arise ; 
For I cherish the pleasures that come from afar 
To the vaporous smoke of my dreamy cigar. 



CURE FOR HEADACHE. 

My brain is athrob with a pvilsing unrest. 

And fever is over my breath ; 
Oh, bury my head in the snow of your breast, 

And let me be frozen to death. 



13^ 



UNDERNEATH. 

Some tuneful words that in our hearts 

Bisect the prosy courses, 
Do, by their rhythm, drive the parts 

Insensibly to verses. 



While sadder things the autumn days 
Our outer lives are bringing, 

A thousand summer roundelays 
The inner voice is singing. 



What though we move in sober coats 

The Quaker masses after ? 
There's something welling in our throats. 

Unorthodox as laughter. 



We take the sacerdotal stole 
And priestly surplice o'er us, 

139 



140 



UNDERNEA TH. 

To hide the real music-soul 
And smother down its chorus. 

What foolish arts beset us all ! 

How we ourselves are tasking ! 
There's every day a funeral, 

And all the mourners masking. 



SIXTY-SIX. 

PROLOGUE. 

There's a sculptor for the marbles 

Over all the buried years, 
And his smooth and polished labor 

In a line of white appears. 

He hath cunning with the chisel, 

And hath graved the record in. 
Telling what the years departed 

In their living-time have been. 

He has now a greater labor, 

Worthy all his better skill; 
He has carved us many virtues — 

Let him carve us now the ill. 

From the black Egyptian marble 

Let him build a column high. 
That the coming years may mark it 

In their quiet passage by. 

141 



142 



SIXTY-SIX. 

Never yet hath sculptor graven 
More of crime or more of sin, 

Than is better now for speaking 
What this latter year hath been ! 



We are moving slowly onward 
Through a vista-way of years ; 

We are looking to a future 
Full of sorrow and of tears ; 

There is not a light to guide us, 

Not a gleam upon the sky; 
All our hopes are dead and buried. 

All our joys have flitted by. 

We are not the Christian nation 
That we once were thought to be, 

When with common voice we worshipped 
"From the centre to the sea." 



We are not a godly people; 

We are very far away 
From the path that leadeth outward 

To the everlasting day. 

Let us see how much of virtue 

We have left in all the store, 
Where a world hath looked and wondered 

In the happy days before. 



SIXTY-SIX. 

Let us see how great and godly 
Are the acts of those who take 

On themselves the nation's ermine 
For the troubled nation's sake. 



First of all, we dare be tyrant — 
We who thought the English sway 

Over torn and trampled Erin 
Should be rudely dashed away; 

We who wept for bleeding Poland, 
And our Christian flag unfurled, 

That its folds might flaunt defiance 
Unto all a tyrant world. 

We have learned another lesson 
In the onward march of time, 

And we build our greatest virtue 
From the fabric of a crime ; 

And we spurn aside the maxim 

That "your truer blood will show;" 

That "he is most ignoble 

Who would trample on a foe." 



We have swept our foreign legions 
Over all the Southern bands — 

They were fewer than the Spartans, 
We were many as the sands — 



143 



144 



SIXTY-SIX. 



And because of all their courage, 
All their stubbornness m fight, 

All their jDride of birth and section, 
All their love of human ria:ht. 



We must put our feet upon them — 
We must crush and bend them low, 

Test their better blood and breeding 
In the future "come to show." 

This is Christian, this is proper, 

This is Puritanic law, 
And we see the goodly future 

As our Plymouth fathers saw. 

What are they that we should love them? 

They are little of our kin ; 
Seldom yet hath Southern current 

Let the Northern current in. 

Proud of blood and proud of bearing. 

Quick in anger to a foe, 
Never yet hath given insult 

Been without attendant blow. 



We are calmer, better balanced, 
We are cooler in our veins ; 

We have less of heart in battle. 
More of calculating brains ; 



SIXTY-SIX. 

We are not a kindred people, 
And the passage yet of years 

Will not mix the Plymouth waters 
With the blood of Cavaliers ! 

Next, we claim a godly power, 
And we widen out our span 

When we raise the apish negro 
To the standard of a man. 

This we do for godly reasons — 
Such our early fathers gave, 
"That the servant may be master, 
And the master may be slave." 

Thus we raise him from the level 
To his greatest earthly goal. 

And we take away his instinct, 
And we give him back a soul — 

Such a soul as we are given. 
Such a soul as makes him great 

He is worthy of the chancel. 
He is worthy of the State ! 

He may come into our circles, 
He may mingle with our blood. 

He shall be our equal brother 
As he was before the Flood. 

M 



145 



146 



SIXTY-SIX. 

Though the curse of God was on him, 
Though he wandered in the land, 

We would give hnn whitest vesture, 
We would take him by the hand. 

In the summer all our meadows 
Were a-bloom with scented hay. 

And the corn upon our acres 
Spread its fullness far away; 

All the shadows of the woodland 
Were astir with heavy kine. 

And the hill-sides gave their treasure 
From the rich Catawba vine. 

Far indeed from cold and hunger. 
Far indeed from want and woe, 

We are in the golden current, 
In the glory of its flow. 



Let the people down below us. 

In the desolated land. 
Starve and shiver in the palaces 

They built upon the sand ; 

We have corn and wine and vesture 
Let it rot and let it mould ; 

They have nothing now to give us, 
Neither human love nor gold. 



SIXTY-SIX. I Ay 



O ye rich and pampered people ! 

O ye cold and cruel men ! 
They have crossed your swords in battle, 

They were one and you were ten ! 



Dare you press your heel upon them, 
When ye usher back the day 

That your full and feasted legions 
Fled before the starving Grey? 

Are ye cowards, are ye cravens 
That ye fear to let them live? 

Can ye see a nation perish 

Whilst ye have the food to give? 

They had richer fields and vineyards, 
Better homes and broader lands. 

Till ye threw the torch among them 
From vour desolatinsj bands. 



They were proof against your valor. 
They had better-tempered steel — 

Think ye now your servant Hunger 
Will be proud to see them kneel. 

Not to you, O callous stranger ' 
Not to baser blood and birth 

Will the true chivalnc Southron 
Bend his knee upon the earth. 



148 SIXTY-SIX. 

Better starve amid the ruins 
Of his fallen arch and dome ! 

Better die amid the ashes 
Of his violated home ! 



Not for cold nor not for hunger 
Will he kiss your iron rod: 

There's an altar for his kneeling, 
It is only to his God ! 

What of him who, great and noble, 

Stood so very long at bay. 
Whilst the veterans drawn around him 

Left their crimson in the way? 

Still in bondage, still in i^rison. 
Living still yet near to death. 

Never yet hath human being 

Drawn on earth a prouder breath 

First among his race and kindred, 
First among his noble clan. 

He has taught a cruel nation 
How to suffer as a man. 



All that cunning, all that malice. 
All that human hate can do, 

AH that any Christian martyr 
In*his dying ever "knew, 



SIXTY-SIX. 149 

He has known and felt and suffered, 

And his spirit liveth still, 
Something more than mortal courage. 

Something more than human will. 



Oh that they could learn to conquer! 

Oh that they could come to know 
How the truer way is opened 

To the bosom of a foe ! 

Not by bars of steel and iron, 
Not by rack and torture here. 

Can ye force the higher spirit 
From its great and only sphere. 

Throw your prison-gates asunder, 
Strike the iron from his hand, 

Bid him walk the earth a freeman, 
Make him equal m the land; 

Show him first that you are noble. 
Let him see that you are brave, 

Act no longer as a coward, 
Be not brutal as a slave. 



While he lingers in the shackles 
He is master of you all, 

He is freer than the sentry 
In your very prison-hall ; 



150 s/xrv-six 

He is better, prouder, freer 

Than the proudest of your State ; 

He can teach you what is noble, 
He can show you what is great. 

May the angels at his pillow 
Their undying vigils keep ! 

God preserve his Southern children. 
Who are praying as they weep ! 



As the fire hid in ashes 

Under mountains of the earth, 

When its red volcanic lava 
Struggles into upper birth, 

There are words that come unbidden. 
And the lips are burst apart 

By a passion leaping upward 
From Its covert in the heart. 

Though we bury wrongs, to hide them 
From our own and other eyes. 

There are those that in us quicken. 
For the spirit never dies ; 

And upward from the charnel 
Come the living that were dead, 

All the olden wounds upon them. 
All the marks of where they bled. 



S/X7'V-SIX. 151 



Oh that crimes and wrongs were fewer ! 

Oh that men were better grown ! 
Oh that veins had less of fever ! 

Oh that hearts had less of stone ! 



Brave Kentucky ! brave, but laggard 
When her sisters gave their blood, 

She has walked into the current 
With her bosom to the flood ; 

She has dared to give example 
To the cruel-hearted States, 

When she meets her Southern children 
With a welcome at her gates. 

Though a tyrant held her silent 
In the shadow of her guns, 

She had all a mother's yearning 
For the glory of her sons ; 

And with chains upon her person, 
And a hand upon her mouth, 

She had not a pulse within her 
But was beating for the South. 

Better far than poor Missouri, 

Better far than Tennessee, 
And Virginia, best of any, 

Better now than she. 



i52 



SIXTY-SIX. 

Ah, Virginia ! torn and bleeding, 
O'er the a^hes of her dead 

Let the tears of queenly woman 
Be the requiem that is said. 

Though they build no pallid marble 
O'er the silence of their graves, 

There are tombs in fairer bosoms 
For Virginia's fallen braves. 

Pass, O seasons, spring and summer ! 

Come again, O winter cold ! 
Time shall never lose the record. 

Time shall hear the story told ! 

Truth has more of spirit-feature, 
Falsehood more of human cast ; 

Nations yet unborn shall hear it. 
Truth shall conquer at the last. 



LEE. 

We saw the fragile maiden, May, 
Trip clown the paths of morning, 

And queen July in central day, 
Her flower-throne adorning; 

And weeping trees in sombre lines 

Took up an anthem murmur. 
When August, with her trailing vines. 

Went out the gates of Summer. 

Now yellow husks are on the grain, 
And leaves are brown and sober. 

And sundown clouds have caught again 
The flush of ripe October ; 

■■■» 

We hear the woody hill-tops croon. 
The airy maize-blades whisper. 

The year is in its afternoon. 
And leaf-bells ring the vesper. 

153 



154 



LEE. 



What is it gives this gloaming-song 

Its melancholy feature ? 
What is it makes our souls prolong 

This monotone of nature ? 



What tearful grief is in our hearts — 
What swaying under-reaso.n ? 

What sorrow real now imparts 
Its spirits to the season? 

The crisping leaves may shoal the ways, 
The sun turn down the heavens — 

Still all the years have fading days, 
And all the days have evens : 

Enough — whatever else may be — 
That in this autumn weather, 

The verdure of the w^orld and Lee 
Have silent fled together. 

So prone are men where'er they move 

To tread the ways of evil, 
They seldom hold their kind above 

A common grade and level ; 

But Lee, beside his fellow-man. 

Stood, over all, a giant — 
The higher type — the perfect plan — 

God fearing, God-reliant 



LEE., 155 

A giant not alone in fields 

Where bent* the sanguine Reaper, 

Where Death threw o'er his harvest-yields 
An autumn crimson deeper; 

But with the iron strength of will 

He sought his life to fashion; 
He held his ruder pulses still, 

And closed the gates of passion. 

There have been men whose mighty deeds, 

On cold historic pages. 
Are driven like October seeds 

Along the reaching ages; 

Whose statues stand like sentinels, 

On whitened shafts and bases, 
Whose ashes rest in marble cells, 

And sepulchres and vases; 

But he who in this autumn time 

Was lost beyond the river, 
Has found a glory-path to climb, 

Forever and forever! 

And monumental marble here. 

With deeds of honor graven, 
What can it be to one so near 

The inner gates of Heaven? 



156 



LEE. 

By still Potomac's margin dun, 
Where shrilly calls the plover^ 

Where lean the heights of Arlington 
Its glassing waters over, 

No autumn voices haunt the moles, 

No breezy covert ripples. 
No longer whirl the leaves in shoals 

Beneath the stately maples ; 

Some vandal's axe has shorn the crest. 
The woody slopes are shaven, 

No longer builds the dove her nest 
Where mournful croaks the raven ; 

But down the Southland's fruity plain 
The leaves are all a-quiver. 

And there his memory shall reign 
Forever and forever ! 




NOTES. 



It was not thought necessary to introduce these poems with 
any apologetic preface, as no apology ought to excuse an act of 
this kind ; but the author takes advantage of these notes to say 
that his verses are an accumulation of the rubbish of boyhood and 
youth, mixed with a few expressions of his later manhood. A 
demand for such a collection has existed among his friends for 
several years, and he has taken advantage of terms offered by his 
publisher to prepare this volume, without a further design than 
that of gratifying those who have manifested a personal interest in 
him and his writings. 

The poem entitled Lee, was hastily prepared after this book 
was ready for press. The subject was worthy a far higher tribute 
than any tongue or pen could offer ; but those who know the 
author will see in the lines a desire to do honor to the memory of 
the great and good man ; and what more can be done ? 

She appeared in the Yeoman, at Frankfort, Ky., in August last. 
It was severely handled by a writer in the Cincinnati Enquirer, 
who thought ''for the sake of letters," poetry of that sentiment' 
had better not be encouraged. It was evident from the character 
of the paragraphs, that he who wrote was perhaps as appreciative 
of the lines as the author himself The poem, if it may be called 

N 157 



158 



NOTES, 



such, was never intended for any other purpose than that ot 
eliciting remark. It succeeded in this particular case, if* not wx 
general. 

The poems Sixty-Five and Sixty-Six, were written in the 
years indicated, and published as New Year addresses. The 
apostrophe to Kentucky in the last poem, was occasioned by 
the circumstance of the repeal of an Expatriation law by the 
Legislature. 

The Moneyless Man appeared for the first time in 1855. 

The Bivouac pictures a condition of the Confederate soldiery 
as existing at Bull's Gap, in 1862. 

Under the Pines was produced on an outpost near the City 
of Richmond, one night in 1864. 

The lines entitled His Last Day, were written upon a few- 
hours' notice, and read at the closing exercises of Rosemont 
Academy. Mr. W. W. Richeson, the tutor, had been in charge 
of a school at Maysville, Ky,, for thirty-seven years, and this occa- 
sion was the last upon which he would officiate there in that 
capacity. He had taught the parents and grand-parents of some 
of his scholars, and was greatly beloved in the community. 

The lines addressed to Master Geo. W. Johnston, were 
written on his birthday. He was then twelve years of age, and 
had already distinguished himself by a long retention of a place 
on the " roll of honor " at an excellent school. His development 
of character now gives high promise of later worth. 

Fallen was one of the author's early efforts. It was first 
published in the Ilhish'ated Ne%vs at Richmond, Va., in 1862, but 
had been written several years before. 

The Little Boy Guiding the Plow was written at " Tally's 
Church," a small log-house in East Tennessee, in 1864. The 
condition of that section at the time was such as the poem 
represents. 



NOTES. 1^9 

A lady of Virginia gave the author a Nasturtium Flower in 
memory of Swain's conceit — 

"A spirit dwell* in every flower." 

She said a fairy inhabited the one she gave, which she hoped 
would inspire a poem. The verses were written in camp that 
night. 

The Faith She Plighted Me is founded upon an actual 
circumstance. The unfortunate gentleman, however, still lives, 
having fairly forgotten his disappointment in the possession of a 
new love. 



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